Warning – this article contains spoilers for The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Season 2.
Bleedin’ Balrogs. Those giant, fiery creatures really do have a habit for ruining one’s day – but battling them has made for some incredible Middle-earth moments over the years. The latest came courtesy of The Rings Of Power Season 2, which saw Peter Mullan’s Scottish Dwarf King Durin III selflessly launch himself at the big horned baddie in order to save his people, after his obsession with one of those titular rings led him to dig too deeply into the Mines Of Moria. It was one of the emotional climaxes of the fantasy series’ second season, as Durin made the ultimate sacrifice, much to the devastation of son Durin IV (Owain Arthur) and his wife Disa (Sophia Nomvete).
As epic as the scene was to watch, shooting it was, for Mullan, quite a different-feeling experience. “I was killed by a bunch of disco lights!” he tells Empire, for the Review Of The Year section in our world-exclusive new Captain America issue. “You’re on this big set, and there’s a whole stream of flashing lights. I got quite lucky because at least I got something that intimated what was going to happen. It wasn’t the classic man-with-a-tennis-ball-on-a-stick.” The sequence also provided an opportunity for Mullan to conduct the ultimate test on his co-stars. “What made it really easy for me was Owain and Sophia,” he says. “They had to do all the crying-acting. That was quite cool, because you find out how much your fellow actors love you. If they don’t fucking cry a lot, you can get quite upset. So I hung around just to make sure that they were crying properly, which they both did, because they’re very beautiful people.”
Whilst some tears might have been shed on set, Mullan has a much more light-hearted view of his character’s death now it’s in the rear-view. “It made me laugh,” he says of his reaction to seeing the finished sequence. “It’s good fun, all that bollocks. I struggle to take all the fantasy stuff seriously, but it’s lovely to see that big, heroic ending for that wee guy.” And an ending that proved, once again, that nobody tosses a dwarf.
Read our full The Rings Of Power piece – plus interviews with Denis Villeneuve, George Miller, Coralie Fargeat and more, as we look back at the biggest on-screen moments of 2024 – in Empire’s February 2025 issue, on sale Thursday 19 December. Pre-order a copy online here. The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power is streaming on Prime Video now.