The Wheel of Time making it to the screen is quite the impressive feat, given the massive amount of material upon which the Amazon fantasy series is based, not to mention the usual difficulties that come with creating any sort of new fictional world for television. Instrumental to that cause were producers Mike Weber (Jumanji: The Next Level) and Marigo Kehoe (Outlander), who helped bring showrunner Rafe Judkins, not to mention a talented international ensemble including Rosamund Pike, Daniel Henney, Josha Stradowski, Marcus Rutherford, Zoë Robins, Barney Harris, and Madeleine Madden, together.

The series begins when the powerful Aes Sedai known as Moiraine (Pike) arrives at a small village in search of the young person who might be able to save the world. In an interview with Collier, Weber and Kehoe revealed their entry points to the series, how they worked to make sure that the show would be accessible to both fans of the books as well as newcomers, and how they approached casting this diverse fantasy land.

Collider: To start off, talk to me a little bit about how you came into this project?

MIKE WEBER: It's a long road. It was presented to me many, many years ago. It was initially developed as a feature film and when it came out of that iteration, the challenge was trying to take this book series of 12,000 pages and condense it and present it to a television series marketplace that was just starting to experience the phenomenon of Game of Thrones and The Handmaid's Tale was starting to come out. And so at this moment, it's had these themes that when we met Rafe Judkins who really had an approach to the material that crystallized it, I think, for all of us, the producers and also for the studios and networks out there. And so it was really his coming out of the project that was the aha moment of how it could be a series.

MARIGO KEHOE: I'm slightly different to Mike. Obviously, I came into it having done Outlander and Electric Dreams as an EP for Sony. I had a company called Left Bank Pictures that made The Crown and I knew Chris Parnell, he became head of the studio very well from doing the series for him. And he asked me to come in and meet Mike and Rafe Judkins as a freelance EP. Having never done a fantasy show before in my life, I absolutely loved the script and the direction of the whole series and the way that it was written, and I met Rafe and Mike and that's how I came to be on it.

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Image via Amazon

Did you hear other pitches beyond Rafe's?

WEBER: I brought the project initially to Sony Pictures Television, again this executive Chris Parnell who had read the books and his wife had read the books and it was sort of a lunch where he wouldn't let me out of the commissary. He's like, "No, no, we have to do this."

And then it took a while to set the project up there. And we heard a number of takes from a number of different writers. And when Sony met with Rafe and then they introduced us to Rafe, it was just, again like I said, that aha moment where he really took what was so special about this massive book series and condensed it into character themes and relevance of today and timelessness. He just touched on all the things that you look for in just an epic adaptation and so that the progression.

Do you remember anything specific about it — a line he said or something that just really flipped the switch for you?

WEBER: Well, it was personal to him. He had read the books, I think, in a time in his life where they helped him through his own coming-of-age moment. And I think it was linking his own life to a lot of the themes of the characters in the book. You could really feel that understanding and that passion behind the material. And it's hard to point to one specific thing, it's just you know it when you see it. And he really had that approach and that passion for it and that-

KEHOE: Yes, passion isn't it? Passion in him and he read them with his mother who he's very close to. So it's that. You feel that in the way that he loves the materials and it comes across in every call.

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Image via Amazon Prime Video

So in terms of the casting, talk to me about what your approach was, in terms of looking for both known names to take on certain roles versus also what appears to be, based on having seen the first three episodes, a really strong, relatively unknown cast ensemble.

KEHOE: Well, we have a wonderful casting director called Kelly Valentine Hendry, and she and Rafe get on brilliantly well. His brief was broad, epic world. Our cast comes from all over the world: Maddie is from Australia, Zoë is from New Zealand, Josha is Dutch. It was all about, you've got to feel the character and those kids as we call them, they're not, they're in their mid-20's, but they're young.

And then the wonderful thing is the huge spread of very strong female cast parts — all ages, all diversities and that's been fascinating. So yes, we've got everybody from to Rosamund, obviously, to Sophie Okonedo. Some amazing casting all the way through but it's been the diversity of age range and all of the above, just amazing.

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Excellent. In terms of that, was it a pretty blanket race-blind policy?

KEHOE: Absolutely, to a degree. What I think I feel is very successful is that you don't feel it's forced. These characters just live in the world and when I read the first book, Emond's Field was diverse and our world is diverse, it's not done in a way that you think, "Oh, I must have this person or I must have this person." It's done based on who is the best person for that role.

WEBER: Right. And also Rafe's approach to the actual mythology of Wheel of Time is the breaking of the world. So 3,000 years before this, a world that we would recognize now to be geographically ethnicities as they have in our world grown-up geographically isolated. When the world broke, essentially imagine the entire world being shuffled about, people are nomadic, they are settling in places and so you have this diversity that it comes from the shakeup of this cataclysmic event that predates the show. So the diverse cast is actually a function of his approach to the adaptation and staying true to the source material in a way.

You just touched on the mythology of the series which is, of course, vast. In approaching it, what's been key to finding the balance between courting the two different audiences you're going to have, which is the very, very loyal book readers and people like my aunt, who watches everything on Amazon but has not read the books?

WEBER: I don't know. I think Rafe's approach was, first and foremost being a fan himself, I think he's like, "Well, what show would I want to see?" And I think him being both a fan of the books, but also a professional television writer and a really brilliant writer within the industry, he had a real good sense of both. And it had to address those two different non-aware fans of fantasy and the people that have also read the books. But if you get the core fans and get them excited about it, that excitement, I think, grows. And I think we're already seeing that.

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KEHOE: Absolutely. And I think he's surrounded himself with people like myself who hadn't read the books and if there was something in the mythology that I didn't understand, I'd say to him, "That's not clear." And then we'd have a conversation and he'd say, "Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, you're right."

So there's a huge number of people on the show who have read every book and every word, and then there's a lot of us like me who have come to it new and now are huge fans of the books. But if there's something we didn't understand, we'd say, "Well, that doesn't make sense. Can you explain?" Because of course, it needs to fulfill both hats.

In terms of world-building details, I don't know why this is one that I fixated on, but I was surprised that Rosamund Pike was wearing pants in her big battle scene. Just because it's a slight differentiation from, trope-wise, what you come to expect from a fantasy period piece like this. And for you, what was interesting about that element?

WEBER: Well, I don't know if you remember the book covers of The Eye of the World's initial one, but we held that up as like, "That's what we're not going to do." Which was Moiraine in a dress riding sidesaddle. In a world run by women, who are women are the dominant sex, no one's riding sidesaddle. You're going to ride that horse like a horse is meant to be ridden and you're going to wear pants.

KEHOE: It's got to be practical. Underneath everything, it was about, "Would they wear that?" "No, they wouldn't." For practical reasons, it's going to be a wonderful costume but there's going to be something practical underneath. She's going to ride her horse. Yeah.

So, big picture, is there a plan in place for multiple seasons? How far do you see this series progressing should it live out its natural course?

WEBER: All the way to the end. As long as the fans support us and audiences agree with what we think how great the show is, then we'll make 10 seasons. That's my plan and that's Marigo's plan.

KEHOE: It's my plan. I'm there, I'm there.

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Image via Amazon Prime Video

For 10 seasons, you're setting your cap right there. That's great.

KEHOE: Absolutely. Always set the cap high.

WEBER: Maybe, I'd go 12. What's Outlander up to now, Marigo? Okay, we've got to beat Outlander, right?

KEHOE: Yeah, I don't know. There are eight, I think. Something like that.

The Wheel of Time premieres Friday, November 19 on Amazon Prime Video.