Top 10 Cutest Behind the Scenes Moments from The Wheel of Time

Reviewing Season 1's Most Adorable BTS Content

This article contains minor content spoilers for Season 1 of the Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime and one very minor character spoiler for the book series.

Daniel Henney stands between two Trollocs about 2 feet taller than him, with his arms folded, wearing a black sweatshirt and beanie hat. He has a fake scared expression on his face. The Trolloc on his left, a bird trolloc, has its long sharp talons resting on Daniel's shoulder.

Look at these cuties! (Source: Daniel Henney's Instagram)

The longer fans go through “The Longing” between seasons of the Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime, the more desperate they get for news. This past week alone will keep the clown make-up industry in business for at least the next fiscal quarter.

In the days leading up to St. Patrick's Day, we saw the fandom losing it over a red heart emoji posted by a red-sweater-swathed Natasha O'Keeffe (she’s obviously Elaida) and generating a range of looney theories as to what the Tweeter of Chaos could possibly mean with two back-to-back posts about the color Green. And when the day finally came, all we got was this photoshopped image of Padan Fain with a shamrock (sad trombone).

Johann Myers as Padan Fain stands outside a Waygate, looking down at a shamrock in his hand.

Instead of endlessly searching for clues that aren’t there, why don’t we use some of our down time between seasons to take a trip down memory lane and look at some of the best Behind The Scenes moments from the filming of Season 1? If we know anything about surviving the Longing, we certainly learned it from the long, pandemic-delayed wait for Season 1 to drop—a time during which fans happily dissected any morsel of information for days.

Then again, with cast and crew spending more time together during lockdown, the Wheel of Time fandom may have actually gotten more BTS content before Season 1 than would be expected under normal circumstances. As the cast became closer and took to social media to pass the time, fans were rewarded with quite possibly the cutest BTS moments we’ll get throughout the entire series. Here’s our Top 10:

10. Álvaro Morte Greeting Sophie Okonedo

Alvaro Morte, wearing a blue linen tunic, hugs Sophie Okonedo, wearing a golden dress and black hoodie, in the hallway outside the Hall of the Tower. Alvaro gently holds the sides of Sophie's face as they kiss one another's cheeks.

We didn’t see this adorable BTS moment until a while after Season 1 aired, when The Wheel of Time dropped a short video of Álvaro Morte (Logain) taking us on a tour of the White Tower during the shooting for Episode 6. As the camera follows Morte through the set, we see him sweetly embrace Sophie Okonedo (Siuan), who is pretty adorable herself, wearing a black hoodie over her full Amyrlin regalia. As they kiss each other on the cheek in greeting, it’s hard to believe she’s about to sentence him to a life of misery in the White Tower as he begs her to execute him.

9. Daniel Henney and Madeleine Madden Having a Dance-Off in the Woods

Daniel Henney on the left and Madeleine Madden on the right in an outdoor set with a black tent, leaves on the ground, and a spotlight set up in the background. They smile at one another while swirling their arms in a circle doing the Cabbage Patch.

This is just a tiny piece of cuteness within a comprehensively adorable BTS video hosted by Daniel Henney (Lan). While the dance lasts only a couple seconds, you’re left feeling joy for days after catching this glimpse of Madeleine Madden (Egwene) and "Laniel" grinning while doing the Cabbage Patch.

While the dance is certainly the cutest moment, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the best part of the video: Daniel discussing the importance of the role of Lan to him as an Asian actor and then gleefully telling the camera that being on the set of the Wheel of Time is a “little kid dream.”

8. Maddie and Marcus, Traveling Buddies

Marcus Rutherford, wearing a brightly striped Tinker's blanket, sits on Madeleine Madden's lap inside a tent. Maddie wears Egwene's hooded and wool lined coat from the show. Maddie has her arms wrapped around Marcus and face pressed against his back, eyes closed and grinning widely.

No one feeds us more WoT breadcrumbs on their social media than Madeleine Madden. Her Instagram account is ripe with BTS photos, several of which made this list, and other infamous ones that did not (our first look at Archie as Bela, for one). But one of the all-time cutest has to be this cuddle puddle of Marcus Rutherford (Perrin) sitting on Maddie’s lap while they were filming their scenes with the Tuatha’an.

The caption reads, “Finding friends (pictured), food (lentils done 50 ways) and comfort (hot water bottles and lap-sits). Some of us needing the comfort more so @marcus_rudda.” It’s unclear whether it was Maddie or Marcus who needed the comfort and warmth, but either way, it seems like lap-sitting is an adorably good way to warm up.

7. Everything About Magdalena Sittova

Magdalena Sittova, wearing black and with red hair pulled back into a pony tail, stands in a harness attached to a wire that is gripped by a male stunt coordinator in a pink t-shirt. Magdalena smiles as the coordinator explains what they are doing to the camera.

In a BTS video about the making of Winternight, released just a few days before we saw the epic cold open to Episode 7, perceptive fans noticed that the red-haired stunt performer cast as Tigraine was in the video, demonstrating the trick behind the Trolloc pulling Nynaeve’s hair in Episode 1.

That was the first glimpse the fandom got of Magdalena Sittova in action, and the huge smile on her face was the first hint of just how much joy and passion she brings to her work. Later, during her interview in “A Look Inside Episode 7,” we can hear the enthusiasm in her voice, even as she discusses how tired she was during the long days of filming of that incredible fight scene.

Not only was Majda a charmingly bright spot in each of these videos, it was fun to learn that she had the opportunity to lend her talents to other scenes, in addition to the Blood Snow. And Showrunner Rafe Judkins is pretty adorable himself when he starts praising the Dragonmother, who he dubs a "f*cking beast."

6. The Gym Weaves as the Gym Wills

Black and white photo of Josha Stradowski standing in a gym wearing a hoodie, taking a mirror selfie with his cell phone, making a "rock on" gesture in the air with his hand.

As fans of little faith complained that Marcus wasn’t buff enough to be Perrin, Instagram stories provided us with proof that he and Josha Stradowski (Rand) were hitting the gym relentlessly.

Their grueling workout schedule was later confirmed in an interview with Rosamund Pike</