How ‘The Wheel of Time’ Turned Marcus Rutherford Into a Dog Person (Exclusive)

Wheel of Time fans have a million questions about the adaptation premiering next week on Amazon Prime Video, and Marcus Rutherford’s pet preferences rank surprisingly high among them. The actor plays Perrin Aybara in the new TV series based on the novels by Robert Jordan. Fair warning: there are very light spoilers for the source material’s story ahead.

I spoke to Rutherford, other cast members and producers in a press junket along with several other reporters, and they all answered a barrage of questions about the upcoming series. Thankfully, Rutherford spared a moment to answer my question: “Are you a dog person?” The actor admitted he did not grow up around canines, but that does not mean he is ill-prepared to play a Wolfbrother. In fact, it sounds like filming The Wheel of Time Season 1 may have been a turning point in Rutherford’s life as a pet owner.

“You know what? I actually grew up with, like, cats,” Rutherford confessed. “Not, like — that sounds like I was feral, I had a family as well, but — I grew up with cats, yeah, and then on this job, obviously, I’ve had to kind of created a relationship with these dogs, these Czech Wolf Dogs, and ever since then, I’m not gonna lie, I feel like I have got quite a special bond with dogs.”

Rutherford and Josha Stradowski had already detailed how they took crash courses in horseback riding, archery, swordplay and other disciplines to make this series authentic. Rutherford revealed that he had one extra skill to learn while his castmates were busy with other scenes.

“Everyone’s out filming on location, and then I go around the back of the studios and I’m just hanging out with these dogs every day! Which is not really a job,” he laughed. “I feel like that’s a pretty cool thing to do. Yeah, it’s been really handy that I’ve had actual Czech Wolf Dogs to act with. I’m sure there could have been some kind of CGI thing, but it’s really cool [when] you’ve got the real thing to act with.”

Rutherford’s character Perrin is one of the five young people to flee the Two Rivers with Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and Lan (Daniel Henney) at the beginning of the series and uncover his grand destiny in the quest to come. He begins to realize he has a kind of mystical connection with wolves near the end of the first book, The Eye of the World. Fans will have to wait and see for themselves where this plot point fits into the TV series, which remixes the timeline quite a bit.

The Wheel of Time premieres on Friday, Nov. 19, on Amazon Video. The book series is available now wherever books are sold in print, digital and audiobook formats.