WotSeries had the opportunity to interview Shohreh Aghdashloo (Elaida) about Season 3 of The Wheel of Time, which was released on Prime Video on March 13, 2025.
Be sure to check out our other Season 3 interviews.
Eri: Hi, I’m Eri with WotSeries.com
Shohreh Aghdashloo: How are you doing?
Eri: I am wonderful! How are you?
Shohreh Aghdashloo: I am doing great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It can’t get any better.
Eri: You are amazing as Elaida, but for a long time fans had you with a different character in mind. So, I know Rafe and you reached out on social media, can you please tell us about what Rafe told you and what ultimately attracted you to the role?
Shohreh Aghdashloo: By all means! First off, when the fans started saying that I should be on The Wheel of Time, I was so surprised that, oh my God, in fact, the fans of The Expanse are my fans as well, and now they’re looking for another job for me because they want to see me at work. That was really amazing, that right there and then I felt at home, like I’m not that strange actor in another country. This is where I live, this is where my home is, and these are my dear people who truly like my work and believe in me.
And then they came up with the idea of Cadsuane, and I do understand why, because they told me that the character of Cadsuane is very much like Avasarala in The Expanse. But then I found out that Cadsuane comes in in book five. So I’m thinking: they’re now going to work on book four, is there a place for me in book four? In season three? And the fans didn’t stop. They kept saying that, “Let’s go find the showrunner!” “Let’s find Rafe Judkins!” and then Rafe started DMing and letting me know that I was on their radar ever since 2018, but they knew I was working on The Expanse and that’s why they didn’t come to me.
I happened to be in London. I had a meeting with their amazing, lovely casting director. We had a coffee, and she said that, “I’m sure you’re aware of what fans are saying now that you should play Cadsuane. But this is not a role that Rafe has in mind for you because Cadsuane would not come in, at least for another year or two, he wants you to play Elaida.” And soon as the fans find out, they were like, “Oh no, we cannot do it. This is not possible because we hate Elaida and we love Avasarala. How could we possibly hate Elaida now?” And I said, “Don’t you worry, just your love is enough for me to portray this character as powerfully as possible so you can enjoy watching the character but are still loving me.” And they said, “Okay! Let’s see!”
Eri: Yeah, and one of the my favorite things about the show is how the antagonists are just so wonderfully portrayed. They really elevate the characters from the books. Can you tell me your process of bringing Elaida to life?
Shohreh Aghdashloo: You said something which is really interesting: the antagonist and fully exposed details with all the details. When I received the offer for The Penguin, I was so happy. I was thinking, “Wait a second, we know everything about Batman. We know who his parents are, who his girlfriend is, what is his favorite drink, who his butler is. But we don’t know anything about The Penguin, who is a strong component of the Batman movies. We know everything about our heroes, but nothing about our villains.”
Same thing — bringing, giving more attention, getting into more details of the antagonists of the show tells me that this is a fully dimensional way of storytelling, that we just don’t give a kind of shallow portrayal of the antagonist and then we pay a lot of attention to the heroes of this series with all the details. No, as a matter of fact, the attention has been divided rightfully between the two, and that was really amazing to me because usually we don’t get to watch that.
Eri: Jumping ahead a little bit. In the last episode, there’s that amazing scene with Elaida and Siuan. What’s going through Elaida’s head? Can you share a little bit about that?
Shohreh Aghdashloo: By all means! She is at the White Tower (a few moments of garbled audio)…Moiraine.
The very last one is either you take care of me or I’ll take care of you. There is no kind of opportunity to shake hands. So let’s see who would take care of the other. That kind of confrontation in our eyes when we looked at each other, we were like, okay, come closer, let me see, let me take a good look at you and you, take a good look at me, because one of us has to leave this Tower no matter what. Let’s see which one that is going to be.
Eri: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Shohreh Aghdashloo: When it comes to women doing that, I found them, I found women more powerful when they want to do that.
Eri: Yes! Thank you so much. I think I’m out of time, but you are wonderful, and we love you so much on the show.
Shohreh Aghdashloo: Thank you.
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.
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