Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for The Wheel of Time Season 3 Episodes 1-3.Every character we’ve followed since the beginning of The Wheel of Time has faced significant loss and trial. While our original quintet from Emond’s Field were forced to uproot themselves from everything they called home and face unknown dangers, one found herself kidnapped by the ruthless Seanchan Empire Season 2 and forced into slavery — and is now only just beginning the process of dealing with her lingering trauma. As Egwene, Madeleine Madden gave a tour de force performance, but the character is still navigating the aftereffects of her experience with the Seanchan when we pick up with her at the beginning of Season 3, which have definitely impacted her relationship with Rand (Josha Stradowski). She’s also feeling more than a little disillusioned with the White Tower, too, but now that she’s gone to the Aiel Waste, Egwene might be able to embrace a side of her power that she’s never tapped into before.
Ahead of the premiere of The Wheel of Time Season 3, Collider had the opportunity to speak with Madden about some of Egwene’s most important moments in the early episodes. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Madden discusses how Egwene’s time with the Seanchan is still haunting her — including in her dreams — as well as having an effect on being intimate with Rand. She also discusses what it was like to film in South Africa, which served as the Aiel Waste for Season 3, and teases what Egwene still has to learn from the Aiel Wise Ones as her story continues.
COLLIDER: I wanted to ask about Egwene’s time with the Seanchan and how that experience impacts her heading into Season 3. As we see in these initial episodes, she is being haunted by that particular point in her life before we realize that these dreams are being manipulated by an outside force. How is that experience still following her and haunting her when we pick up with her at the beginning of the third season?
MADELEINE MADDEN: That experience of shooting those episodes and scenes sometimes still haunts me a bit. Even recreating those scenes in Season 3 when they’re back in the cage, collar back on, I was like, “Oh, god!” But it’s sort of funny, I think I spent so much time in that world and in that part of her life, and it was such an important moment for me to get right that I feel quite comfortable in playing that now. I think because when she is the damane, and she’s in the kennels, she’s completely stripped back of her powers. There’s nothing pulling her up and out of this plight other than herself and her own willpower and her own inner strength. So, physically, I had a lot of freedom to move as much or as little as I wanted.
But you’re absolutely right, at the start of Season 3, we find her still being haunted by what she’s endured, and I think this season is really a season of her self-recovery and her healing. There are some people that she meets along the way that really help her with this. In going inward and dealing with her past and what she’s experienced, she’s able to truly set herself free from it and grow. Something that I love about Egwene, no matter what she goes through in her life, whether it’s a hardship or a positive experience, it still has a really positive influence on her in the way she moves forward in life. She’s just like a little sponge. So, yeah, it was a bit of a challenge stepping back into that after so much time had passed.
This show has always been circling around the concept of the Dragon Reborn prophecy, but this season really feels like it leans into fate as a theme and futures that may or may not happen. We see that with the visions that Moiraine has, but also specifically Egwene’s time through the Arches when she goes through her accepted test. From a performance standpoint, what is it like to get to play out some of those futures, even if it’s only for the span of just one scene?
MADDEN: It’s incredible and so exciting because, in this show, you could live 1,000 different lifetimes. Everything and anything is possible and we see that. That’s awfully difficult for our writers and sometimes our crew, and for us, as well, to articulate that and put that on screen. It’s mind-bending how you try and understand the way time is dealt with in The Wheel of Time, but it is really exciting. There are definitely a couple of potential futures or parallel universes that we get to play in, and that’s always so much fun because you fully go with hair and costume and the sets. So, that’s always really exciting.
Madeleine Madden Explains the Emotional Distance Between Rand and Egwene in ‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 3

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This first episode picks up where we left off with everybody at the end of Season 2, with everyone coming together in Falme. We have the reunion of everyone together, and there is a nice feeling seeing everyone back, but it feels like this gang was also really weighed down by everything that they’ve been through, to the point where things just don’t really feel the same anymore when you’re watching it as a viewer. For Egwene, what forces her to have that realization for herself in terms of this group of friends that she’s known, arguably, her entire life?
MADDEN: They definitely slip back into that comfortability and familiarity, and that is something that they’re all wanting and yearning for, certainly, at the end of Season 2 and at the start of Season 3. Like you said, they’re being weighed down by their past and what they’ve endured, and how can you even begin to articulate what you’ve gone through? Particularly Egwene. It’s just too painful. But I think, for one brief moment, it’s really wonderful for the characters to have that feeling of home and familiarity. But ultimately, things have forever changed and it never will be the same.
I was struck by watching these early scenes with Rand and Egwene because I feel like it’s that tension that we’re seeing through the entire group, but really focused between the two of them in your early scenes with Josha [Stradowski]. It feels like she’s struggling with intimacy after what she’s been through. It’s difficult for her to be touched, and you see it’s difficult for her to even explain why that is to Rand. Did you and Josha have conversations about this turning point in their relationship and playing the distance in those scenes — because even when they’re physically close to each other, it feels like, emotionally, they’re just not really on the same page?
MADDEN: Absolutely. Thank you for addressing that. That is something that I sat down with [writers] Rafe [Judkins] and Justine [Juel Gillmer] and [director] Ciaran [Donnelly] and told them I’d love to just flesh out a bit more how, like you said, even though you’re intimate, and you’re close with someone, you’ve never felt more alone and isolated. I still don’t think that Egwene feels like her body is her own because it hasn’t been for so long. She’s had her autonomy brutally ripped away from her.
That’s why it’s so important, her finding that comfort and familiarity in Rand, and this is something that Josha and I really spoke about for a long time — because obviously, he’s been intimate with someone else, and he’s got this big, gnarly scar on his stomach from his battle with Ishamael. Her neck and his infested, open wound are two parts of their bodies that they have a lot of red tape around, but yet they both let each other in, like, “No, you can touch me there. You can touch me here.” It’s sort of like giving yourself to someone again, or trying to at least, so that was really important for us to play into.

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“It’s a Double-Edged Sword”: ‘The Wheel of Time’s Rosamund Pike and Josha Stradowski Discuss Moiraine and Rand’s Changing Relationship in Season 3

They also discuss getting to play out futures that may or may not happen and Moiraine’s tenuous alliance with Lanfear.

Being in the Aiel Waste for ‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 3 Was a Professional Highlight for Madeleine Madden

Image via Prime Video

At the beginning of the season, everybody splits and goes in separate directions, but there are a few of you going to the Waste this season, which I think a lot of fans are going to be excited to see. How did the change in setting really help inform your performance? Because a lot of that experience — and fans of the books know, it really does push Egwene out of her comfort zone in a lot of ways.
MADDEN: Absolutely. I know for me personally, and I can say for pretty much everyone else, we were all pushed out of our comfort zones to shoot on location. Shooting in South Africa and in Cape Town was one of the biggest joys of my life and highlights of my career. It really does inform so much of what we do. You just can’t replicate being in a desert in South Africa with a cast, crew, and 500 supporting artists standing on sand dunes. You just can’t replicate that in a studio.
It certainly really helps you energetically, interacting with tangible objects and being in that location. It’s so important in this series because the landscape is like a character in itself. So, honoring that and actually shooting on these locations is really special. It also really bonds you and binds you with the cast, especially the new cast, who are already coming into a very established show. It’s really wonderful to have the opportunity to be in a foreign location and really connect and bond together. We’re super lucky that we get to do that.
Talking about the new cast and bonds, Egwene also gets the chance to interact with a lot of the new characters this season, especially the Aiel Wise Ones. What does she learn from them that helps her shape or maybe reforge her perception of herself? This season, she doesn’t really feel like she’s part of the White Tower, necessarily. She feels like an outsider there. How does working with these women really help [Egwene] forge that new perception of herself?
MADDEN: It really breaks her mind into understanding the magic that exists in the world. She’s being told by these Wise Ones, “You’re special. You can do this. You’ve got to lean into it. We’re here to support you.” She’s always gravitated towards women in her life to learn from, to look up to for support.
It was just so incredible working with Nukâka [Coster-Waldaua] and Salóme [Gunnarsdóttir] this season because they brought something so unique to the show, which I don’t think we’ve seen before and which feels very rooted in Aiel culture. Through Egwene’s storyline and the introduction of the Wise Ones, we see the way magic and the world and the lore in this story are consistently and continually expanding. It was something I was really, really excited to dive into.
New episodes of The Wheel of Time Season 3 premiere Thursdays on Prime Video.