The original anime feature The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim returns audiences to the epic world brought to life in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, based on the revered books by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Set 183 years before the events chronicled in the original trilogy of films, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim tells the fate of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan. A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg—a mighty fortress that will later come to be known as Helm’s Deep. Finding herself in an increasingly desperate situation, Héra, the daughter of Helm, must summon the will to lead the resistance against a deadly enemy intent on their total destruction.
Voicing Héra and Fréaláf Hildeson, Helm’s nephew and successor to the throne of Rohan, respectively, are Gaia Wise and Laurence Ubong Williams, who spoke to our own Peter Gray ahead of the film’s release this week (you can read our review here), where they touched on how they navigated the new experience of voice work and what character from their childhood they think they might like to personally tackle vocally.
I wanted to ask about when you’re doing voice work, because you don’t have the benefit of physical expression on screen, how do you find bringing moments to life through these characters when it’s just your voice?
Gaia Wise: For me, it was a sort of style of acting that I’d actually explored at all. It felt quite “not drama school”, if you know what I mean. It’s not necessarily a natural thing for an actor to do, to have nobody to kind of bounce off of and be entirely reliant on your own voice. I think I grew a lot in confidence trying to find it. I think a lot of the script held so much character and so much of what I needed to really work out who she was, and then once I discovered where she sat in my body, and where her emotions lie, and whether or not she’s going to have a battle cry or scream, you know? Those sort of nuances. It was a wonderful experience, because you can just walk into the booth and bash it out.
Laurence Ubong Williams: The other thing that was great about this process was that we had it stretched over two to three years, which meant that when we first did it we were relying on our voices exclusively. But then as time moves on, we have animators feeding back and saying what it will look like. This is how the environment will look. And then that starts to inform you, and you go back and do another take, and then it comes back again and you’re constantly being informed by how things will start to look and feel over the course of a few years. What do you call it? Long form tennis? The back and forth of the anime. A new way of working that I never experienced before, but I found completely exhiliarating.
I mean, it’s always a good thing to technically be able to roll up to work in your pyjamas…
Laurence Ubong Williams: We didn’t have that luxury, but now that you mention it. Why didn’t we take advantage?
Gaia Wise: It was part of my characterization to go in feeling (like the character), so I wore big boots and big belts. I wanted to feel like a heroine princess.
Laurence Ubong Williams: I’d follow you. I’m definitely doing the pyjamas.
Now that we can say your experts in voicing characters, would there be any character from a film or show from your childhood that you think, “I wouldn’t mind voicing them.”
Laurence Ubong Williams: What a great question.
Gaia Wise: I want to be the mad, awful cat woman from Cinderella. Her step mum.
Laurence Ubong Williams: That’s your one?
Gaia Wise: Mate, she lies in a dark room with a cat on her. I literally can’t think of anything nicer. That’s what I would do. My method, actually, would be bringing my cats into the booth.
Laurence Ubong Williams: That’s good. I don’t know. The immediate one that comes to me are the vultures in The Jungle Book. They sound like The Beatles. What would be the modern manifestation of that? What would be the contemporary version of The Beatles with four rappers? Four Brooklyn rappers, maybe we go down that route.
I feel like now that that’s out there in the universe…
Laurence Ubong Williams: Make it happen (laughs).
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is screening in Australian theatres from December 12th, 2024.
