Actor Robert Aramayo, who plays Elrond in Amazon Studios’ The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, spent some of his pandemic-related downtime working on farms, and no one knew who he was. Aramayo couldn’t leave New Zealand, where the show was filmed, because it wasn’t a sure thing that he’d be allowed back in due to pandemic restrictions at the time.

With some free time on his hands, Aramayo read a lot, and also traveled around Zealand by bus and by hitchhiking, he told Variety. The actor also worked on farms in exchange for food and lodging.