Full spoilers for The Rings of Power Episode 8.
The actor who portrays Sauron in rings of strength He revealed that he did not know the true identity of his character until he filmed the third episode of the show.
Ever since high fantasy, big budget head videos Airing began September 2, and fans have been wondering when the Dark Lord will appear, and once it does, who will be the actor who will play the primary villain of The Lord of the Rings. now with Episodes of Power Episode 8 After our release, we finally got the answer.
Major spoilers trace to The last episode of the first season. Come back now if you haven’t seen it yet.
Halbrand, played by Charlie Vickers since Episode 2, has been Sauron the whole time. As it turns out, the presumed heir to the Southland throne has been fooling viewers — and the characters of The Rings of Power, most notably Galadriel — for a long time.
However, the time Halbrand spent pulling the fleece over everyone’s eyes is nothing compared to the two-and-a-half-year secrecy of Vickers, and the rest of the cast who had to keep it. In early October, Morvid Clark (Gladrill) and Teru Mahavi El Din (Theo) TechRadar exclusively told they know who Sauron is. With Halbrand’s true identity now revealed, everyone involved in the show’s production can breathe a sigh of relief – especially Vickers.
So, when did the Medici actor know he was actually going to play the most famous antagonist in Lord of the Rings? Not for a while, actually. Vickers, who originally auditioned for the role of half-elf Elrond, was kept in the dark until filming on Prime video The offer was in progress.
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“I’ve had an idea for a while,” Vickers told TechRadar exclusively before the release of Episode 8. “I didn’t know I’d been specifically playing Sauron for a while – I didn’t sit down and he told me until maybe a couple of months before we started shooting Episode 3. So that scene in Episode 2, when I came on the raft, I didn’t know.”
Clarke, who spends most of her time acting opposite Halbrandt Vickers in Season 1, was also unaware of the character she was masquerading as. That was until production began in Episode 3, when Galadriel and Halbrand arrived in Númenor after being rescued from the Sundering Seas by Elendil and his crew.
“We didn’t know until we got to Nimnor,” Clarke exclusively revealed the pre-episode 8 release. After that, it was very interesting trying to figure out when the showrunners and writers were putting together these little clues.
“I’ve actually missed a few now, watching it again! I didn’t realize you’d never seen Halbrand sleep. One of his first lines to Galadriel is ‘looks can be deceiving,’ which is the most obvious evidence it was really fun to play a character I didn’t expect to I never play it, and after Charlie finds out he was playing someone he wasn’t expecting, either, which we hardly saw in that form.”
As the main villain of The Lord of the Rings, there is a certain unsurprising level of expectations that fans have for Sauron. However, Vickers doesn’t feel the pressure to bring this fearsome character back to life in Amazon’s Lord of the Rings—though he knows not everyone will be excited to portray him.
“I know how important this character is to a lot of people,” he said. “And I feel very privileged and proud to have had the opportunity to bring it back to life. It’s so amazing. But, of course, I know that people have high expectations and I can’t really control people’s thoughts. I’ve found a lot of solace in the source material and reading and learning as much as I can.” The only thing I can do is put my absolute heart and soul into it.”
For more exclusive coverage on The Rings of Power, keep reading How the show’s second episode almost inadvertently broke the big reveal of Sauron.