The 14 books that comprise Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time fantasy series were released over 23 years. Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming TV adaptation can’t possibly last half that long, but if the show is successful, it’s still going to be a massive time investment for every actor on board. When Gizmodo asked star Daniel Henney — who plays the Warder Lan to Rosamund Pike’s Moiraine — why he signed on, his answer was a lot more… mystic than we expected.
Actually, we asked both Henney and Pike the same question — what made The Wheel of Time so special that they’ve potentially obligated up to a decade of their lives to make the show. Pike praised the special unity between the cast members, which is honestly a very standard, generic response to this sort of question. But here’s what Henney said, and all you need to know is that The Eye of the World is the first novel in the series:
“Actually, this is a funny thing — I do a vision board thing if I have something in my mind, career-wise, that I’d like to reach one day. In 2011, not really knowing what the books were, I saved a picture of the cover of The Eye of the World on my phone because I saw Lan, and he was on his horse and then Moiraine next to him, I just thought, ‘I’d like to play a character like that one day.’ It’s no joke, it’s no lie, it’s just so crazy. I showed [Rosamund] the picture recently.” Pike backed him up, saying, “I was amazed! I was like, ‘Oh my goodness!’” Here’s the book cover, by the way, showing Lan riding beside the diminutive Moiraine:
“So it just seemed very kismet to me when the call came and we started talking,” Henney continued. “It was a no-brainer.” Or was it… prophecy?!
The Wheel of Time TV series premieres on Amazon Prime Video, November 19, with its first three episodes. Following episodes will be released every Friday. You can read our review here.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.