The Rings of Power star discusses the new show’s approach to racial diversity

Sir Lenny Henry is a veteran British actor and comedian who appears in Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel show The Rings of Power. He plays Sadoc Burrows, a harfoot (basically a hobbit).

Henry is one of several actors of color on the show. There wasn’t much racial diversity in The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies from Peter Jackson, so Amazon’s decision to make it a priority has gotten a lot of attention, mostly from reactionary ding dongs who think that racial diversity has no place in a story about different races of people working together to defeat evil.

Thanks to tireless campaigning by people like Henry, who was one of the few Black faces on British TV throughout the ’70s and ’80s, Hollywood in general has lately put more emphasis on having diverse casts and crews. “I didn’t see anybody in charge of anything that looked like me for a very long time, so that is lonely,” he told The Times. “You’ve got all of these people now saying the same things that I started saying in 2000, which is ,‘The industry needs to change and can it hurry up, please.’”

The Rings of Power is a Lord of the Rings show for the 21st century

Accordingly, the Middle-earth we see in The Rings of Power will be a more racially diverse place, because it’s being made by people in the year 2022, and people in the industry think a little differently than they did when Jackson was making his Lord of the Rings movies back in the early 2000s. “That’s to do with it being the 21st century; people want to see themselves,” Henry said. “Of course, if you go back, there’s going to be that thing that prevails because the books don’t say . . . although some of the characters are described as hard-skinned and darker in complexion . . . but that was then, this is now and we’re telling the story now.”

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Amazon Prime Video this Friday, September 2. I’ve been lucky enough to see the first two episodes and am very interested to see how the public in general reacts, so stick around for much discussion.

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h/t Deadline