The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is over, and the season finale brought with it lots of surprises. The biggest was definitely that Halbrand, the supposed “King of the Southlands” who’d been hanging out with Galadriel all season, was actually Gandalf, the future Dark Lord of Middle-earth.
As it ends up, actor Charlie Vickers didn’t know he was playing Sauron until a few episodes in…although he had his suspicions. “My last two audition pieces, one was a Richard III speech, and the other was a speech from Paradise Lost where I was literally playing Satan. So, I was a bit sus,” he told SyFy Wire. That said, he always played Halbrand as Halbrand, without irony or artifice:
"I think I was always earnestly playing Halbrand. There were moments with the directors…would be like, “This moment is really important because it sets up a Sauron Easter egg.” When I was making decisions, I was making them solely as Halbrand, hoping that my work as Sauron was embedded in the performance and would inform the performance, because it’s hard to play two characters at once. I think the crucial thing is that one of Sauron’s foremost titles is The Deceiver, and in order to deceive someone like Galadriel, he would have to be fully invested in this character of Halbrand in order to deceive. It helped me as an actor to be fully invested in it as well."
We will learn why Sauron was on that raft…eventually
By the end of the season, Halbrand/Sauron had transitioned from pretending to be King of the Southlands to pretending to be just an ordinary smith who can help the elf Celebrimbor make a trio of magical rings that can save the elves from extinction. But was that always his intention, or did he just stumble on the opportunity?
“It’s a really interesting question and something I’ve mulled over,” Vickers said. “I had to make a decision, and I made a decision for my process, but I don’t think there’s a firm answer. What I believe is that he has this idea, creating a power over flesh — not of the flesh, but over flesh — this line that is repeated so much. And he’s had this idea for a long time, but he has fallen from his power and he’s brought low and he’s stranded on a raft.”
"Tolkien talks of him lingering and then very slowly he’s reformed. I think that idea is always present but it’s not until he meets Celebrimbor — and I talked about this a lot with the showrunners — that he meets the right person that can enact and help him create this idea, and put this idea into practice. Then it’s like “Eureka! Here we go. The answer is jewelry.”"
Speaking of that raft, we will eventually learn why Sauron was on it, but not until later. For the moment, we’re still trying to piece together why Sauron is helping the elves make the rings of power in the first place. Does he honestly want to do good, or is this some scheme?
“The really interesting thing about the way the season is set up, and Sauron as a character, is that Tolkien talks about him being in this repentant phase,” Vickers said. “But, he always says he was repentant out of fear. Fear of the gods and fear of humiliation. So, there is a question of whether his repentance is genuine. I don’t think it’s my place to answer that. I have an answer in my mind, but I think it’s better if you watch the season and you think, ‘Oh wow, it could play both ways.'”
"If he is genuinely repentant, then he’s just looking for his peace and Galadriel is dragging him back. She makes him realize that he will not find peace anywhere. He won’t find peace as a regular dude, he’ll only find it fighting big battles with the gods. Or you can view it as him manipulating her. A few things need to fall into place but a lot of his moves are manipulation."
The Rings of Power season 2 will give us a Sauron closer to the one we know
Yeah, about Galadriel…apparently that offer to make her a queen was genuine. “They definitely have a bond,” Vickers said. “He feels a bond to her. But it’s on another level to a bond that we as humans can be familiar with. They operate at a really high frequency that nobody else does. It’s not a romantic husband and wife, king and queen thing, necessarily. In his mind, she can be his queen because she can help him affect his designs at a faster pace. That’s why he loved working with Morgoth, because Morgoth could make s*** happen really fast. Even with Galadriel by his side, he would have ended up in charge, making sure that he’s in charge. But, I think it’s an earnest pitch to her at that moment. ”
It’ll be a while before we see what Sauron has planned for his next move. But it sounds like season 2 will bring us more of the Sauron we’re familiar with from The Lord of the Rings lore. “I am really thrilled and excited for next season to get Sauron doing s***,” Vickers said. “Doing stuff that we know him for in the lore. It’s incredibly exciting and it’s going to be really cool for the audience to watch along knowing that he’s Sauron. You’re watching characters be like, ‘Oh no! Don’t do that! You’re getting tricked!’ You’re in on the grift, and I can’t wait to be able to get into that.”
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels