Maxim Baldry

What if Maxim knew that the result of his cosplaying as Boromir in his back garden as a child while his parents looked on concerned would be in his playing Isildur now in that same imagined world (that is expectedly much larger and unexpectedly much muddier)? Would his yearning be the same? After all, youthful optimism is all about not knowing. Despite the blistering heat and lack of air-con when we chat over Zoom, Baldry’s eyes light up with a boyish sparkle at the chance to talk Tolkien. We talk about how he still finds himself going back to the source material for comfort. It’s not every day you get to play make-believe in the world that helped shape your reality, and Baldry finds himself incredibly grateful in the middle of all of it.

As our chat continues, I’m struck by how passionately Maxim expresses the path he wants to take for his character. The “quest for truth” is paramount for Maxim, and so the questions along the way are intentional and candid. Maxim is giddy to explore as an actor, but also as a human. With the template the films provide, along with the endless appendices, what we’re treated to is a nuanced performance by Maxim that paints Isildur as more than the King who succumbed to power.

The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power releases weekly on Prime Video starting 29th August 2024.

Isildur is such a complex character, and I love how much depth and exploration he's being given. Was it easy for you to stay true to the source material while essentially building him from the ground up?
That's a great question. I think it's a complex one to explore because Tolkien has given a lot of signposts to the character. We know what he does, but we don't quite know how he gets there. I've been given this wonderful opportunity to give him a backstory, and as a fan of the books and films myself, I know the weight that Isildur carries in the Tolkien lore to the fans. I took that on with a great sense of privilege and honour. I wanted to make him very personal. I wanted to make him an honest reflection of growing up and feeling lost and grieving. I think we meet Isildur in a state of grief, and grief affects many people in different ways. I wanted him to feel hurt, and when hurt doesn't have an outlet, how does that affect someone? In his case, it manifested in a very fractured relationship with his family, the people that he held so dearly. He isolates himself, and his only friend is a horse. And in that respect, I think there's something quite vulnerable about him. He wants to escape.

So, in season two, his wish comes true. He has escaped into Middle-earth, and he is in the wild. What he doesn't realise is that he's been abandoned, and he's been left in Middle-earth. How does that affect a person who is lost within themselves? I wanted to explore survival. How does he survive? What does he learn? He goes through this insane personal growth from the get-go of season two, and he has to learn how to survive. Yeah, it's a deep journey. It's like character growth across the board. It's incredible.

And you did an amazing job portraying the breadth of it all.
That means a lot.

Throughout the Lord of the Rings movies, Aragorn is fearful of becoming like Isildur or failing as he did, and he carries that burden. Did you look to Aragorn at all for your prep? And how have you incorporated what you know of the future into your portrayal?
Okay, that's a great question again [laughs], because I think Isildur and Aragorn have a lot of similarities in terms of their heroic qualities. But I think what Aragorn has is a bit of perspective on his bloodline. Númenor has never experienced pain in the way that it's about to see, with the fracturing of its country. Aragorn has that perspective. He can look back and see his bloodline make mistakes and get things wrong, and he is so aware of that. He doesn't put himself in situations where he can get corrupted. With Isildur, however, he is persistent and incredibly driven. I think therein lies the problem with someone persistent and driven, when nothing bad has happened to them yet in terms of Númenor. Things get taken away from Isildur consistently throughout the show, and it will continue to happen, so he does things out of a sense of retribution and revenge.

The similarities, however, that I wanted to incorporate between Aragorn and Isildur is their relationship with their horses. I think of that scene where Aragorn almost dies and his horse revives him and takes him to Helm's Deep, I think. I wanted the same relationship with Beric and Isildur. Isildur also gets saved by Beric for the first time in episode three. Those parallels can mirror the characters in a way, but they're both different. I like the fact that they're tied into each other through the expanse of time. That excited me a lot. I'm very glad Patrick [McKay] and JD [Payne] saw that Beric and Isildur kind of work together.

When you got the call that you were going to be auditioning, did you know it was going to be for The Rings of Power? Did they keep it under wraps?
I remember getting an email from my agent saying, “We got you an audition for a project called ‘Untitled Amazon Project’, and we think it could be great for you.” And I was like, “Well, what does that mean?” They were like, “We don't know the character, but we have a character description.” The description of the character, which I can still remember to this day, was “a young mercurial soldier who has the weight of the world on his shoulders.” I gave it my best shot and somehow managed to produce the goods for Isildur. It was a stab at the dark, but I think sometimes you have to give it a go, don't you?

Nothing ventured, right? And when you found out it was The Rings of Power, what was the reaction?
When I found out it was The Lord of the Rings, I was like, “Holy moly.” [laughs] There’s a big expectation. Also, as a hardcore fan myself, I grew up dressing up like Boromir in the back garden, and my parents were like, “What are you doing? Be like a normal kid.” I’d think, I'm just living in this world, let me exist. I remember having numerous chats with my parents and I said, “I want to be an actor,” after watching the trilogy. And they said, “Yeah, yeah, well, look, that ship has sailed. The Lord of the Rings, you know, they're not going to do it again.” And much later when I got the call for being in The Rings of Power, I had this wholehearted, full-circle moment. I was so happy and my parents were so proud. That's what it's all about - fulfilling your goals and dreams. I'm very grateful every day to wake up and go to work.

That leads to my next question. As Maxim, which Lord of the Rings character do you relate to the most and why? And you can't say Aragorn.
I think Boromir is a very fascinating character. He is the one who gets corrupted. And he just always fascinates me as well as the relationship between Boromir and his father and Faramir. I think there are similarities with Isildur that I tap into. And I mean, I have dressed as Boromir pretending an arrow shot through me in the back garden so I have to say him!

So then, which Lord of the Rings character do you wish you were more like? What characteristics do you want to foster within yourself?
As my character or as me as Maxim?

As Maxim. Boromir and Aragorn are off the table now. [laughs]
Absolutely. I think I'd want to have a bit of Samwise Gamgee, the unsung hero of the trilogy. There's persistence to Samwise that is so inherently good and hopeful, that it makes me want to exist in this world.

Agreed. He is very much the heart of the story. Moving forward, do you think you'd do a better job as a ring bearer than Isildur?
It's a terrifying question, isn't it? [laughs] I don't think anyone would. I don't think anyone should have ultimate power over anything. I think that is quite daunting to me. But I don't know. I want to say I would hopefully have some wisdom about it. But I think even the likes of Gandalf are aware of the power of that - of being corrupted. I would say that Isildur did his best. I would try my best. But I would be worried about having ultimate power and dominion over everyone. I don't think I ever want that. So, I wouldn't go near the ring. I'd be like, “Oh, it's very pretty.”

Same. I don’t think I’d fair any better. The idea of that much power is terrifying. That being said, what do you think it is about this world and this story keeps bringing people back?
I think Tolkien is the father of fantasy in so many ways. And I think he got his inspiration from Norse mythology. I think a lot about why people gravitate towards it, and why I was so obsessed with it. There's this sense of hope and optimism in Tolkien that inspires me. There's always light at the end of the tunnel. Whenever there's darkness, whenever there is pain, there's this youthful optimism in Tolkien that makes me yearn for it. I have always gone back to the books. I've always gone back to the movies as a source of joy when things get tough. That's why the community is so strong.

I was in San Diego just now celebrating The Rings of Power season two. We met so many of the fans, and they are just so joyful. There's this sense of hope amongst us as a community that I just find so invigorating. It's wonderful to be a part of. It's that sense of optimism that the world needs and deserves.

I think the world needs a little bit of that hope and optimism right now.
I was going to say as well, it’s a form of escapism. You have Harry Potter too, for example, which also has fantastical elements, but there are still these very human emotions and interactions. You can see yourself in all these stories. I think that it's human nature to explore the sense of what it is to be a human. These stories draw people in and keep them there because they’re so human.

I totally agree with that. With a character like Isildur, it would be so easy to brand him a villain given that we know how his story ends. But nothing is black and white. And that’s so human, right? There's so much nuance to the character. And that's thanks to your performance. How would you say he's grown between this season and the last?
Okay, so in season one he's got this youthful optimism, he's grieving, he wants to get out. I think season two is a season about desperately wanting to come home. He is in survival mode; he has to fight monsters. That instantly makes you grow up. I mean, it makes you think, this is life or death. He has to fight Shelob, another lovely moment of being able to mirror the films and bring the books to our interpretation of Tolkien. He also has to mature quickly in his appreciation of who to trust. He meets another character who he begins to fall in love with. They've both lost things in their lives and that's what brings them together, it’s not just this superfluous attraction. It's still Tolkienian thematically. He falls in love with someone who betrays him in some way. The big decision he has to make in season two is whether to follow his heart or his head. Does he choose this person or his love for Númenor? That is the big decision that he will fight in season two. He arrives in season two, as a boy, and he leaves a man. That's the story. There's no more boy Isildur. We see an Isildur that's been hardened by death, that's been hardened by survival. He kind of loses his youthfulness.

The innocence is gone.
The innocence is gone. That's when you start seeing the Isildur you might pick up from the movies - the hardened, gritty, mercenary sort of fanatical person that I think is what he will eventually be in season three.

Oh, I can't wait to see that. Do you have the scripts already?
We always have a dialogue with the showrunners. That's another thing about JD and Patrick, they talk with us because we all know where the story is heading. We have these signposts, it's all about how we get there. They're very interested in how I'm constructing Isildur and they listen to our input. There's this wonderful collaborative nature that is a blessing as an actor.

That’s wonderful. Pivoting away from the show for a second, what made you want to pursue acting? What media sparked that interest in you other than The Lord of the Rings?
Because it actually was! [laughs] As a kid, I gravitated towards performing and theatre a lot. I had the good fortune of working when I was a lot younger. And from 2007, I've just sort of been around actors and directors. I caught the bug early and I couldn't quite get rid of it. I think it's about this sort of quest for truth. That's what makes me gravitate toward certain roles as well. It’s about humans and how we connect. How do we react to things? And the shows and the films that I love explore that. There Will Be Blood is one that I love. I love Phantom Thread. I love a film by a director called Ira Sachs called Passages, which is a phenomenal movie. I love European cinema. I like grittiness - when things get down to character exploration.

You also have a love of music! You have a band which I found out during my research. How did Terra Twin come to be? And what creative itch does music scratch that acting doesn't?
Ah, yes. So, Terra Twin is my bedroom project that I started in New Zealand whilst filming The Rings of Power. Now it has a life of its own, you know? Ever since we got a lawyer for the band, it's like, Okay, this has a life of its own. We've recently just got signed as well. So, it's crazy. It scratches the itch of being able to connect with audiences in real time. I've played music since I was a kid and I'm still playing with people that I went to school with. It allows for this sense of being a team because acting is quite a solitary experience. You explore characters and films and you're very insular in your own world. Whereas with music, you're connected to your teammates because you wouldn't be able to do it without them and you also connect with an audience. Hearing someone sing our songs back to us when we're on tour is one of the most amazing feelings ever.

Speaking of a tour, is that on the cards? Is there new music in the works?
We've just signed with a wonderful label that is so excited about us. We have a single coming out on the 5th of September. We've got another EP that's on the way. We're playing loads of summer shows. We've just finished a tour earlier in the year, and now we're playing some summer festivals. We're playing live at Leeds and hopefully a big London show at the end of the year.

Amazing! How do you find the time?
I get quite overwhelmed with a lot of stuff. I think I have to slow down. I remember shooting The Rings of Power season two, I was on night shoots for about a week, finishing at about four in the morning. I was so tired. There was this one day when we shot a music video for the band. I remember going to bed at about four-thirty in the morning and waking up at seven to shoot the music video for a whole day. It destroyed me. I vowed to keep music and acting as separate as possible but somehow they're bleeding together.

So, was coffee your friend during that music video?
Lots and lots of coffee.

I read that before The Rings of Power, you didn't know how to ride a horse. What are some skills that you've picked up throughout your acting career that you use in your day-to-day life?
Persistence. Sometimes things don't come easy. I think horse riding was one of those things. I was desperately excited to do it. I think it was really important for me to be able to ride a horse. I was riding about three or four times a week.

Wow.
And it’s a commitment, it wasn't easy. I fell off a horse once.

I'm guessing that wasn't the best experience for you? [laughs]
You have to get back in the saddle. That's the sort of stuff that really fires me up. I also love going to the gym and having to make sure my body is in the right physical shape to withstand a lot of the stunts. Also, I had to prepare for just getting muddy. I got so muddy. I don't know what I did wrong to deserve such treatment. All I remember is just my poor makeup artist, Sarah. She was just like, “Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.” And I would dunk my face in a bucket of mud. And then she'd be like, “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.” That day in and day out is pretty tough. I don't know what prepares you for that. That's the mindset. So, persistence, because you just keep going.

It's all mental gymnastics.
Exactly.

When you look at how far you've come, from Mr. Bean, Hollyoaks, Years and Years, and now The Rings of Power, what are some life lessons you've learned about yourself from each project that you take into the next?
I think my grandma's words just resonate with me. She was a ballerina. She did a few movies when she was in the Soviet Union back in the day. But she always told me, “If someone else can help you, take the help.” And I would go, “No, no, no, no, no. What do you mean? I need to do it all. I need to do it all.” And she says, “You're going to hurt yourself or you'll burn yourself out.” I think what I've learned over time is that it's okay to ask for help. I just learned to moderate my approach to things because I tend to be so passionate and so obsessive that it's okay to take a step back and ask for help. If a stuntman can fill in for a certain thing that could maybe hurt me, I should ask for that help and be open to it. This job is such a collaborative one at the end of the day, that it's all about us coming together as a collective to make the best possible piece of work.

My last question for you is, what advice would you give young Maxim knowing everything you do now?
I would say, “It's going to get muddy!” [laughs] “Buy some good shower gel, body scrub, anything that can help get the mud out.” No, I would probably say, keep going. I think my life and career hasn't been necessarily an easy one. It's been full of ups and downs and work hasn't been constant. But I would just tell him to really be grateful for each opportunity you get and to keep putting one foot in front of the other and not look at the goal. Look at each day as it comes and breathe.