The Rings of Power star Charlie Vickers breaks down Sauron's insane scene with Celebrimbor (Exclusive)

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has come to an end with a pretty explosive finale. The dwarves fought a balrog, we found out the identity of the Stranger, and Sauron shot his friend and colleague Celebrimbor full of arrows while saying, "Look what you're doing to yourself."

That scene between Sauron (Charlie Vickers) and Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) was particularly nuts; Sauron has been working with Celebrimbor all season to fashion the rings of power, but when Celebrimbor hides away the nine rings meant for mortal men, Sauron immediately starts to look like the dark lord we remember from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, torturing his friend and not looking the least bit regretful about it.

We got to ask actor Charlie Vickers all about this scene during an exclusive interview, which you can watch above. "Yeah, it was the scene that stood out to both of us the most when we read the script," he told us. "When [reporters have asked] what scene are you most looking forward to, and I say, 'oh, there's one in episode eight, but I can't talk about it.' So now I can."

"It was an incredibly intense day, two days even. But we did the bulk of it on one day. And yeah, it was demanding. Charlie in particular had really long speech that he had to do. And then he was hoisted up the wall when he was impaled on the spear. It was really swings and roundabouts. And it's kind of the first window into Sauron's full descent into darkness, because we've seen him and we know that he's manipulating, but now he's openly torturing someone. And I think it was also exciting because it's canonical, right? Celebrimbor's torso was full of arrows when he died. And so to be able to tell that story and then impale him on the spear and hoist him into the air was really cool, because it's an iconic image in Tolkien."

Charlie Vickers says Sauron is "sincere" about his dream of peace

The fascinating thing about Sauron right now is that he keeps saying he wants to heal Middle-earth and bring peace to the land...but he also shoots his friends full of arrows and plays a part in the destruction of the elven city of Eregion. And now he's in charge of an army of orcs. Given all this, exactly how sincere can he be about his mission of peace?

"I think from his perspective, and therefore from mine, it is sincere," Vickers told us. "He has to try and heal, and reorder. Tolkien was specific in saying that he wants to reorder and rehabilitate Middle-earth. But he also said 'Sauron is the like the absolute evil in my stories,' and that's what he needs to represent. So you're kind of juggling both as an actor. I have to justify everything I'm doing so that it's grounded in truth. But then I know that I'm serving the story by being the villain of the story. And the two aren't mutually exclusive. He can be doing things that he thinks are right and then have moments where he loses control and goes too far from our perspective. But for him, he just thinks, 'well, that's just a blip. Whatever, I killed him. But now I'm gonna move on.'"

"And in a sadistic way, you see that in the scene, he kills Celebrimbor and he is quite emotional and out of control and upset about it, because Celebrimbor was a great, great creative partner and someone he really respected and he really could have used Celebrimbor. But also he's hidden the nine from him and Celebrimbor has defeated him in that moment. So you see him kill him and then he just kind of changes when Glug comes in, the orc, and is on to the next task."

As Celebrimbor says, Sauron is the Great Deceiver; he even deceives himself, and I am enjoying every minute of it. "It's been really fun to...delve into like the darker parts of the character [in season 2], as he starts to be show his true colors a bit more," Vickers said. "[That's] been really cool to explore. But one thing I'm super excited about with this character and I love doing is that, like...what's he gonna do next? Who is he gonna manipulate next? He's the deceiver, right? So it gives you a lot of license as an actor to really play and that's the part I love the most about it."

Thanks so much to Charlie Vickers for talking to us! You can stream both seasons of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power right now on Amazon Prime Video. As for season 3, we're still waiting on confirmation, but it sounds like it's around the corner:

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