Last week it was announced that Jamie Campbell Bower, the actor best known for playing the monstrous villain Vecna on Stranger Things, was making the leap to Middle-earth. Campbell Bower has officially joined the cast of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for its third season, along with Eddie Marsan (Ray Donovan). It's still too early to be certain who Campbell Bower is playing, but a new rumor stoked by the actor himself puts him in the shoes of one of the most iconic villains in the Lord of the Rings saga: the Witch-king of Angmar.
Gamesradar+ noticed that Campbell Bower had made a change to his X profile sometime during the past week, changing his bio to simply read "Witch King." This is obviously not anything concrete; would Campbel Bower really give away the game in such a simple way without any official reveal by Amazon?
Jamie Campbell Bower would be a great fit for the Witch-king
I'm not willing to bet the farm on it...and yet, it's hard to deny that Campbell Bower would be a good fit for a role like the Witch-king, who we're expecting to see in The Rings of Power season 3. The show's next installment will pick up a few years after the explosive season 2 finale, with Sauron and the Elves in the thick of a brutal war for control of Middle-earth. According to the official description for the season, Sauron will begin turning his efforts toward crafting the One Ring to rule them all. Since we saw him and the Elven smith Celebrimbor craft the rest of the rings last season — including the nine which will enslave the human kings of the Second Age — it's a safe guess that we'll see humanity fall under his thrall in season 3.
The Witch-king of Angmar was the greatest of those human kings, and became the most terrifying of Sauron's generals after he succumbed to the temptation of the rings. His true identity was never firmly established in Tolkien's works and is a point of speculation among Tolkien scholars to this day. The Rings of Power would have room to mold the Witch-king's backstory to the needs of season 3, which fits with their MO of playing fast and loose with the source material.
It would also fit with Campbel Bower's MO as an actor. While he's previously said he hopes to get away from only playing villains on screen, there's no denying that he's good at assuming dark, twisty roles. The Witch-king we see in season 3 would certainly be that. This is long before the time when he's wearing a pointy-crowned mask and flying around on a fell beast; in the days of The Rings of Power, he'll likely still be a human leader gradually growing closer and closer to the darkness. Campbell Bower played a similar sort of journey with Vecna, by showing him as a seemingly harmless man who eventually went off the rails when he was released from captivity with the help of Eleven. It's easy to imagine Campbell Bower tackling the sort of weighty material that would suit the Witch-king of Angmar.
For now, I'm going to hope this pans out. But whether Campbell Bower plays the Witch-king or some other role, we can rest assured that he'll only be an asset to The Rings of Power when it returns for its third season.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is currently in pre-production on season 3. I'd expect it to hit Prime Video sometime in 2026.
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