Brian Cox felt 9 years old voicing king in new 'Lord of the Rings' anime

NEW YORK, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Shakespearean-trained, Succession Emmy winner Brian Cox says he had no trouble transitioning from live action to voice performance for his new anime project, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.

"One of the useful things is called imagination," Cox, 78, recently joked with the crowd at New York Comic Con.

"We've all been children. One of the things as a child is the pretending. We pretend to be grown up," he said.

"We grow up and we realize how disappointing it is, but I value my childhood and I value what I did when I was a kid and ... even though I am a certain age -- I won't give up what it is -- but I still think of myself as 9."

He said he brought that youthful attitude into the studio and Zoom sessions to record his lines as the medieval king of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand.

"You can take yourself on amazing journeys in a very small room and sometimes, during COVID, I did it in my closet," he said. "Of course, [the filmmakers] were all able to see my horrible clothes surrounding me as I was making these noises [during simulated fight scenes]."

He recalled receiving directions that included, "That's the punch I was looking for!" and "No, no, no!"

Opening in theaters Friday, the movie is inspired by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and is set 183 years before the events of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy of films.

Gaia Wise plays Hammerhand's daughter, Héra; Luke Pasqualino plays Wulf, Hera's childhood friend, who wants to bring down her family's kingdom after his own father is killed; and Miranda Otto reprises her Lord of the Rings role of Éowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan, who serves as the film's narrator.

"The one light in his life is his daughter, and so, his daughter is very close to him," Cox said.

"It's also important to remind people that Helm is an elected king," the actor added. "He was probably a warrior for a long time before he became a king and this is the very special part of his life. In a way, that is his raison d'etre -- for trying to give everything to her and the idea that he's going to marry her to this horrific individual is totally against his being."

Rohirrim is produced by Oscar winner Philippa Boyens, who co-wrote and produced The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.

Boyens, 62, said she had been looking to return to Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle Earth when Sam Register, the head of Warner Bros.' animation department, suggested she use anime to expand the franchise.

"This story sprang to mind immediately," Boyens said, referring to The War of Rohirrim, which is mentioned in the appendices to Tolkien's books, but not fully fleshed out in a novel of its own.

"I had this gut feeling that somehow Rohirrim would work in that world of anime and within the great tradition of Japanese filmmaking [because of] the mystic themes of loyalty and honor, but underneath that current of 'no one is truly good, no one is completely evil,'" she added.

"It's all about the choices that you choose to make, which is such a central theme, as you know, to Tolkien."

Despite the new installment's aesthetics, Boyens assured that audience members will recognize the Middle Earth and its inhabitants Tolkien breathed into life nearly a century ago.

"We have tried to be faithful. We never change anything lightly," she said.

"When we add, we try to draw from sources that feel authentic to the world," Boyens said. "It is never not a gift to go back into that incredible imagination of Professor Tolkien."

Otto returning as Éowyn also provides some connective tissue between the original Lord of the Rings movies and this new chapter, she said.

"Did anyone get chills hearing her voice?" Boyens asked the audience, whose members had just watched a trailer for the film.

"It's one of those things when things start to come together and feel right," she said of bringing Otto back for the film. "Everyone feels it, and that's what happened here."

According to Boyens, one major challenge was translating the story to the screen.

"I very casually disregarded the fact that there's hundreds and hundreds of horses involved in it, and that became a problem," she said with a laugh.

"The very first time [the filmmaking team members] were on Zoom, and I was so over-excited, as I get, I was going, 'I can just see it, thousands of horses charging!'"

She said they initially asked, "Sorry, how many horses?'"

But after that, "They didn't flinch," and masterfully got the job done.