FULL SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE SEASON ONE FINALE OF THE RINGS OF POWER.
After much speculation as to their identity, the eighth and final episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s first season revealed which cast member had been the evil Sauron all along. After an initial misdirect that said Sauron was The Stranger (David Weyman), it was revealed later in the episode that the Dark Lord was, in fact, Halbrand (Charlie Vickers).
Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) began to suspect Halbrand was more than he seemed when he showed an abundance of interest in helping Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) forge what would become the first three rings of power. But when she discovered that the last king of the Southlands died centuries before without an heir, Halbrand acknowledged that he was indeed Sauron – and that Galadriel had helped bring her archenemy home.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Charlie Vickers said he initially didn’t know he was actually playing Sauron, but the materials he was given for his audition suggested he might be:
“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.”
It wasn’t until they were filming the third episode of the first season that the producers informed Vickers he was, indeed, playing Sauron. This secret was kept from most of the cast and crew – save for Vickers’ scene partner Morfydd Clark – as late into the production as possible.
Vickers told EW that he absorbed as much of J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material as he could in preparation for the role, reading all the books and supplemental materials including the author’s notes, including one in which the author revealed that, although the embodiment of evil, Sauron felt repentant following his actions in the First Age.
“Whether or not you view that repentance as genuine completely colors his actions of the season. You can look back at his actions, and they can be genuine repentance and it all makes sense. But if you look at him as manipulating everything and using Galadriel to bring him back,” Vickers said. “Of course, there are some coincidences that happen along the way, which play into his hands. But he is able to manipulate people. I have a clear answer as to what worked best for me, but I like to leave it kind of ambiguous for the audience because it creates a bit of interesting discussion. It makes it cool to look back on and leave it to interpretation, I think.”
Vickers is the first actor to play Sauron as a human being, and he likened Sauron’s ability to shape-shift and fully immerse himself into being a human in order to accomplish his agenda as being like a thespian, jokingly observing, “He's like the world's greatest Method actor. He's like Daniel Day-Lewis.”
Season One ends with Sauron reaching Mordor. Vickers told Variety in a separate interview that Sauron “has a plan. Going back into Mordor is the first stage of that plan. I’m not going to spoil it, but it doesn’t take long to find out in the second season. We find out pretty quickly. He definitely has a plan, and that’s where it begins, with those first few steps back down. I’ve started filming; we’re well underway in the second season. I’ve read a few scripts and am very much immersed in that world now.”
While Halbrand’s journey may now be over, Sauron’s has just begun …
What did you think of the Sauron reveal at the end of Season One? Let us know in the comments.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power's Sauron Actor Responds to the Finale Reveal - IGN - IGN
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