‘Rings of Power’ actress: ‘I needed therapy to survive violent scenes’

If you can’t beat ’em, train with ’em.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” star Morfydd Clark revealed the intense way she prepared for her role as Galadriel — an ethereal warrior elf that was played by Cate Blanchett in the films.

“When I was playing Galadriel, the stunt team said, ‘You’ve got a problem because you’re used to being attacked on film,’” she told Empire about adjusting to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth fantasy world.

“I would flinch a lot when people came at me. So they did exposure therapy with me, where I would have all these huge, huge men running at me, screaming with swords. To stop me from looking frightened. Because I’ve definitely been cast as the victim. And Galadriel is not that,” she explained.

Morfydd Clark said the therapy helped her not look scared on camera. ©Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection

The 33-year-old’s “Rings” role is different from the types of jobs she usually books. Clark is most recognizable for portraying a traumatized nurse in “Saint Maud” but has always been a fan of Tolkien’s franchise — even if she didn’t realize she was auditioning for it right away.

“The first [audition], I didn’t know what I was auditioning for,” Clark recalled. “The actress next to me looked over all sneaky and was like, ‘Do you know what this is for? It’s “Lord of the Rings.”‘ And I’m forever grateful to her,” she declared.

“I went into the toilet and just stared at myself and was like, ‘You’ve gotta pull yourself together. You’ve been training for this for years,'” Clark said of her audition. “‘You know what to do, it’s in your blood.’ Because I’d been obsessively watching ‘Lord of the Rings’ for my whole childhood.”

The series is set thousands of years before the original films and features new, diverse characters that are meant to modernize the series.

The Amazon Prime series was a personal venture to CEO Jeff Bezos, who is a longtime fan of the franchise. He passed that passion down to his son, who Bezos said gave him some advice on the show.