Interview with ‘The Wheel of Time’ Director, Thomas Napper

WotSeries had the opportunity to interview director Thomas Napper. Napper directed Episode 3 and 4 for Season 3, and Episodes 1 and 2 in Season 2. Season 3 of The Wheel of Time premiered on Prime Video on March 13, 2025.

Read more to hear about his approach to Episode 3 in comparison to Episode 4, and about collaborating with Josha Stradowski to make the glass column scenes work. If you missed our other interviews, visit the Season 3 interview archive! 

Cait: Hi, Thomas. I’m Cait from WotSeries. Thank you so much for taking time with us today.

Thomas Napper: Thank you for all the lovely things you guys are writing about episode 4. It’s been really nice reading your stuff.

Cait: It’s been lovely watching it, bringing something to life that the five of us have been reading for decades. So thank you so much for that. My first question is, Episode 3 and four are both excellent and also very different, with the broader focus on all of the plots in Episode 3, and then the closer focus on Rhuidean and the lore there in episode four. How did you vary your approach as a director for those two episodes?

Thomas Napper: I mean, I think Episode 3 is a step into the darker realms of the show. Absolutely loved being able to introduce Sammael and Rahvin and start the show off, like, “Um, excuse me.” So that felt like a big step forwards in terms of just kind of bringing in the darker side of the show. I think all of the Forsaken characters are kind of lifting the show actually,  Laia Costa,  Natasha O’Keeffe. It’s kind of wonderful watching that momentum build. I love working with all of those actors. And Natasha I’ve wanted to work with for years. So bringing her into the show last season was kind of a thrill for me. I really think she’s a wonderful actor. I’ve worked with her again on a film last year as well. So she’s fantastic. 

So Episode 3 feels like it’s got quite a few iconic moments kind of snuck away in there, like the kind of the moment with Mat and Gawyn and Galad. Another actor that I love working with: Donal. So it’s just amazing to do that episode, but all the while in the back of my mind, while we were doing Episode 3, episode four is kind of playing on my mind. 

We were actually shooting the city of Rhuidean at the same time. So we were kind of working on everything that happens within the smoke filled city is all shot on a stage in Prague. And so we, we filmed that on the big stage of the Barrandov. And it was a real jigsaw putting it together. We didn’t have a…There was, there wasn’t really a Rhuidean set. It was kind of suggested and it was suggested through the smoke, but it was different set pieces like the tree and the rings and the columns and the statues. So it had sort of four or five or six different versions of itself. And so I was just constantly going off and shooting that with David Luther and working with Josha, trying to build the connections between the characters, the linking moments that he experiences in the columns that then play out with the characters. So we were in our own little world going, “Well, if what about if he does this and then he touches the floor and then we could then start…” You know, it’s like we were trying to work out physical connections between scenes that none of which had been shot.

Cait: That’s really interesting because we definitely noticed that watching the shots, the editing between the shots, you know, when he’s walking through the columns, or stumbling or dragging himself through the columns, and then the end and the beginnings of all the scenes. Those were fantastic. So that actually leads into my next question, which is about Josha’s performance as those seven characters, six of them being his ancestors. His acting is fantastic. What was the collaborative process, though, between you two, you kind of talked about it a little bit, that you guys brought to bringing the history of the Aiel to life in such a convincing and very emotional way for us.

Thomas Napper: Oh, thank you. Well, Josha and I got on really well doing Season 2. We only did the scenes in the sanatorium. So when he’s going to work in the sanatorium and then when he’s with Selene in the bedroom. So we didn’t we didn’t do a huge amount of scenes; I had a whole episode which didn’t feature him at the beginning of season two. I think we really like working with each other and then we got to do this you know and it’s sort of such a challenge when you start. When you’re staring at the page and then trying to work out how to navigate through this and what you really want to do is you want to be able to kind of put your feet on the floor with the characters and you want to kind of have some sort of grounding for the characters, for the actor, for myself. 

I felt kind of quite unsure about various aspects of episode four. It was all an unknown. It was like doing a movie in that a lot of it is outside of what we’ve already seen in the Wheel of Time. Rhuidean was a whole new experience. The Aiel had not been established. So we did a lot of casting to create the Aiel, the Taardad, and the Shaido. And then beyond that was Rhuidean itself. So technically, there’s a lot of work on Rhuidean. I spoke about that a little bit. 

And then emotionally and for Josha, you know, Rafe has written a beautiful script. First and foremost, Rafe’s script is a really beautiful homage to the original text. And then Josha and I sat down and we just wanted to bring Sharon Gilham and Davina Lamont into the process really early, partly because we just felt like we wanted to inspire Josha and give him something to feed him, which was the prosthetics, which was costume ideas. The first costume idea was like a rug over his back, but it was like weighted. So it kind of made him double down. So  Sharon’s initial ideas were like sketches, but they were connected to a lot of work that was going on behind the scenes, which was about the history of the Aiel and trying to help the viewer ultimately understand that we’re doing what we’re doing for a reason, that we’re showing these splits and these kind of big historical moments. But without, you know, without it wanting to be a dry history lesson, you know. 

So I think where Rafe’s script was really brilliant was that it gave us characters that were going through these emotional moments. And so working with Josha was about finding those emotional keystones and then working out how we’re going to go in and out of those scenes, like properly in and out. We’re never going to see this character again. This is it. This is the moment. And it’s this kind of hugely important historical moment as well. But you’ve got to care for Jonai and young Adan, you have to care for them, you have to feel that they’ve lost someone and that they’re still going to carry on, that he’s going to keep his oath.

Cait: The hat was a really nice touch. I don’t know who decided on keeping the hat but that was one of the things I noticed, I call them ‘wotchers’ with an “o” but people who are show-onlies, they noticed that continuity and it really came through. We loved episode four. I think it will go down as a fan favorite.

Thomas Napper: There are so many of those.

Cait: Well I cannot wait to go look for more.

Thomas Napper: There’s so many little kind of linking things and we wanted there to be more, you know, we wanted there to be Jeordam and we wanted, you know, the Charn in that, you know, we wanted the other Charn, you know, it’s like this, there’s even more in the book and maybe we’ll…who knows, hopefully, but I’d love to kind of finish all of the steps of the journey.

Cait: Yes, yes. Well, thank you so much for your time. I know we’ve run out of time and I just want to say thank you Thanks for this and for your support.

Thomas Napper: Thanks Cait, Thanks for all of the stuff you (WotSeries) have been writing. I’m so appreciative of the things you’ve been writing.

Cait: Oh, we’re very excited that you read it. And Season 2, Episode 2 might also be one of my favorites of the whole series. 

Thomas Napper: Oh, bless you. 

The third season of The Wheel of Time, based on Robert Jordan’s fantasy book series, premiered on Prime Video on March 13, 2025. All episodes of the first two seasons of The Wheel of Time are now available on Prime Video. The series is co-produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios.

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Editorial note: For clarity and readability, we’ve made minor edits to this interview, such as removing filler words and repetitions. The responses remain true to the original recorded conversation.