The Rings of Power Star Didn’t Know They Were Playing Sauron at the Start of Filming

The Rings of Power’s Sauron actor didn’t know he was auditioning as the iconic villain,and did not find out until after the start of filming.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power delivered some rug-pulling surprises in its season one finale, including revealing the identity of Sauron in the series…twice. However, it seems that the on-screen switch up was not the only cloak and dagger aspect of Sauron’s true identity, as actor Charlie Vickers has revealed that he did not know he was playing the Dark Lord when filming on the series began.

The Rings of Power takes place many years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and the first season ended up being an origin story for several iconic characters from Tolkien lore, and as the series as a whole will chart Sauron’s rise to power and the forging of the one ring it is not surprising that his presence in the series is being felt early on. For Charlie Vickers, though, his initial audition and the first part of film was spent not knowing that he would be playing the iconic Middle Earth villain. He told Entertainment Weekly:

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“No! I had maybe six or seven auditions, and when I got to the end of the audition process, they gave me two monologues. They gave me a monologue from Richard III at the end, when he’s standing over a body and is basically being really evil. Then, the other one was from Paradise Lost, the poem by Milton, and it was literally Satan. So I had an inkling when I was doing those speeches that the character had some kind of a dark arc. [Laughs] But it wasn’t until after our hiatus. We filmed the first two episodes, and then we went on hiatus because of COVID. That whole time I thought I was playing Halbrand, a human from a Southlands, which, I think, I was.

But then, the guys sat me down right before we started filming the third episode, and they said to me, “There’s more to this. You’re playing Sauron.” By that point, because of my audition material and a few other things, I had an inkling. But it was nice to get it properly confirmed.”

Related: The Rings of Power Season 2 Features Several Key Moments Initially Meant for Season 1

The Rings of Power’s Second Season Is Already Filming

Although The Rings of Power’s season one finale is still being unpacked, the second season’s production is already underway and with the main players of the franchise now established, it is going to be a much different season to the first. A number of storylines have already been teased for the future, not least the emergence of the Balrog, but the fallout of Halbrand’s deception and how Galadriel deals with that is going to be a central theme of the new season, as the journey to the events of The Hobbit continues.

However, even with filming underway on the new season, that does not mean the second season will be coming to Prime Video soon. According to the team, there could yet be a two to three year wait for the new episodes to arrive thanks to the huge amount of visual effects to be completed. Whether this will be good for the series, which has been on the receiving end of some tough criticisms, is yet to be seen when The Rings of Power finally picks up its story again in the next few years.

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