Dwarf Beards Fall Off as Heatwave Hits Rings of Power Set

Eddie Marsan's beard peeled off in a close-up. The moment came during filming of Season 3 of Prime Video's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" at Shepperton Studios in late June, as temperatures topped 90 degrees and wildfire alerts covered Greater London.

The dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dûm faced a new enemy: sweat. Almost every cast and crew member, numbering in the hundreds, carried a mini fan between takes. Before Owain Arthur, who plays the newly crowned dwarf King Durin IV, stepped onto a set carved to resemble the Misty Mountains, one assistant aimed a fan at his face while another cooled the back of his neck.

"Eddie Marsan's beard suddenly peeled off in a close-up yesterday," hair and make-up designer Flora Moody said. "We're really try to keep things on, but it's a struggle — everyone's just sweating so much."

Moody had, by her own account, made matters harder. Season 3 jumps five years ahead of Season 2, and she increased the volume of on-screen hair accordingly. "I think this is one of the hairiest shows," she said. The dwarf beards, made of itchy yak tail hair, are bulkier, longer, more elaborately plaited — and heavier. When glue mixes with sweat, they slip.

How do you keep a dwarf cool?

The prosthetics team fights the same battle with oversized dwarven noses and ears. "When you're getting somebody into a thick layer of rubber and then covering them in really heavy leather costumes, they're just walking saunas," said Barrie Gower, who oversees prosthetics with his wife Sarah Gower across thousands of body parts. "We spend the entire day walking around and prodding their faces to try to preventing things from peeling off them."

Marsan, who joins Season 3 as the power-hungry Thrain, confirmed the countermeasures. "We had ice vests," he said. Costume designer Libby Dempster, promoted to lead for Season 3, described them: "You plug them in between takes and they're attached to an ice pack."

Outside another soundstage, orcs in scraggly armor fanned themselves in the shade. Asked how they were coping, one bellowed: "It's hotter than the fiery pits of Mordor!"

The elves fared better. "We didn't suffer as much as others," said Morfydd Clark, who plays Galadriel, though the costume department struggled to "keep the elves looking effortlessly cool while we're all a bit a sweaty and red." Robert Aramayo's Elrond escaped almost entirely. "He's the luckiest of the elves, because he doesn't have a wig," Clark said. "He just has such a gorgeous natural head of hair."

What happens in Season 3?

Heat, planned or not, runs through the season. At Mount Doom, Sauron forges the One Ring, allowing Charlie Vickers — disguised for two seasons as Halbrand and Annatar — to appear, in showrunner J.D. Payne's phrase, as "full metal Sauron."

Co-showrunner Patrick McKay called the ring-making scene "the most extraordinarily technically complicated sequence we've ever attempted on the show." VFX specialist Jason Smith, an Oscar nominee for the bear sequences in "The Revenant," ranked it among the most complex of his career.

Galadriel, whom Payne says has "been through the ringer," gets a romance: the return of her long-lost husband Celeborn, played by Jamie Campbell Bower after a six-month casting search. "It's just lush," Clark said. Elrond faces the opposite arc. "They're constantly testing him — all the time he's morally grappling with the challenges they're giving him," Aramayo said.

Production has settled at the newly expanded Shepperton Studios, occupying nine of 17 new soundstages and a backlot; Netflix uses the other eight for "Bridgerton." "Season 3 and going forward, we are all in Shepperton," McKay said. Production designer Kristian Milstead said one set, allowing camera shots in all directions, drastically reduces the need for VFX extension.

Will the show reach five seasons?

The series reportedly cost around $1 billion, the most expensive television show ever produced, yet Season 2 drew 60% fewer viewers than Season 1's launch. Season 4 remains ungreenlit, despite rumors of an early 2027 shoot.

"I think with anyone who is shepherding a title or piece of IP with a huge global audience, you have to be your own harshest critic," Payne said. "The pressure we put on ourselves as fans of this material — that has been be the God we pray to."

McKay answered questions about the planned five-season, 50-episode run diplomatically: "We're busily working away in Middle-earth every day. We just keep going." Clark, for her part, counts the workforce itself. "I just love to be on something creative where there's a couple of thousand people employed to do it," she said. "I just feel really lucky to be heading back into this world, but also heading back into it with this village that we've got."