‘Rings of Power’ actress Nazanin Boniadi dedicated time at TheWrap’s Power Women Summit 2022 at the Fairmont Miramar hotel to shout out the Women of Iran at the “Women Who Lead: Actress Roundtable.”
The actress, who plays orc-slayer Bronwyn in Amazon Prime Video’s prequel series based on JRR Tolkien’s legendarium, participated in the panel conversation alongside “Everything Everywhere All At Once” actress Stephanie Hsu, “Glass Onion” actress Jessica Henwick, “White Lotus” actress Sabrina Impacciatore and “L-Word” actress Jillian Mercado.
When asked about the humanity and leadership of her character and within the world of Middle Earth, Boniadi tied one of her audition scenes — which ended up in episode 5 of the show — to her work in activism.
“She gives a speech to her people and I immediately drew from — I’m a 14 year activist, a human rights activist for my homeland Iran,” she began as the audience applauded. “And in that scene, she’s basically rallying the Southlander’s saying, ‘Let’s band together we can defeat evil,’ and I remember thinking in that moment, and of course, this is three years ago — my audition, way before the current crisis in Iran, and I remember doing the scene and drawing strength from all the women I’d been fighting for and whose stories I’ve been hearing inside Iran and I remember thinking, ‘OK, if I get this role, those women were gonna be my my inspiration for this role.”
Boniadi’s character also practices healing when she can as a mother to her rebellious teenage son. Sje also has a forbidden romance with an elf. Her Southlander status means she comes rom people who sided with evil over good, and she talked about her character needed to redeem herself. The actress used her people’s history as inspiration for reluctant leadership.
“They didn’t come into this world thinking, ‘Well, I’m going to someday lead my people to victory and freedom,’ but they’re in this position and they have to sort of, they have no choice. It’s that or death, that or future generations dying and being oppressed,” she said. “So they rise to the occasion, right? The bitter irony of all this, this show being promoted is when I was at Comic Con, just in July, I remember sitting on that stage in Hall H and dedicating this role to the brave women of Iran.”
Boniad then drew the conversation to today’s current crisis in the country with the mention of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in October of this year.
“Little did I know that two months later that I would be standing — that Mahsa Amini would be murdered — and that I would be standing outside the federal building in Los Angeles speaking to 20,000 protesters,” she added. “So this moment feels surreal to me that I’m playing this role that lends itself to for me to be able to speak on what’s happening in Iran in such a major way, and yeah, so that’s what I’ve drawn from and I’m so proud of the women of Iran.”
Asked about the conversations of infusing this reality into her role, Boniadi fought for her character to not embrace the evil of her ancestors.
“One thing that I said very early on is ‘I know that there’s no signs of her being evil. I like to keep it that way’ just because I didn’t want that stereotype of, you know, the only Middle Eastern actor on the show, all of a sudden being the villain,” she said. “And the other thing conversations that happen like for example, I think Bronwyn is driven by love, love for her son, love for Arondir and the love of her people.”
Boniadi then discussed how she infused more advocacy work into her character.
“I always say in my advocacy work, which is what I kept drawing from is, there’s two ways to go about changing the world. One is your love for the disenfranchised. And the other one is your hatred of those who oppress people right?” she said. “So if you’re driven by love for the disenfranchised, you get more done. It eels better and there’s less burnout. If you’re driven by by your hatred for the oppressors it’s so easy to burn out and it’s so easy just feel defeated. So those are the types of conversations behind the scene and how do we make Bronwyn really hopeful character — which was really the showrunners’ intention — of being that sort of ray of light in an otherwise sort of defeated place in Middle Earth. So yeah [they were] really, really open and receptive to those conversations.”
The Power Women Summit (PWS) is the largest annual gathering of the most influential women in entertainment, media and technology. The event aims to inspire and empower women across the landscape of their professional careers and personal lives. This year’s PWS provides two days of education, mentorship, workshops and networking around the globe – to promote this year’s theme, “A Time to Unite.” Learn more here: thewrap.com/pws.