A couple of weeks ago, we were wondering if Prime Video was ever going to get around to ordering another season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Not only did they soon after pull the trigger on season 3, but now we're hearing about casting! Variety reports that two new actors are coming aboard: Eddie Marsan, best know for playing Terry Donovan opposite Liev Schreiber in Showtime’s Ray Donovan; and Jamie Campbell Bower, best known for tormenting the children of Hawkins, IN as Vecna in Netflix's Stranger Things.
When last we left things in The Rings of Power, Sauron had forged several of the titular rings and had left the Elven city of Eregion in tatters. The third season will jump forward in time into the thick of the war between Sauron and the elves, and I suspect we might see the guy pour all of his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life into a certain golden bauble.
There's no word on who Marsan or Bower will play, although Bower does sort of have the look of an elf, with those high cheekbones and sharp features. Eddie Marsan I can picture as a mortal man of Middle-earth, or maybe a harfoot.
After Vecna, Jamie Campbell Bower doesn't want to play anymore villains
Whoever Bower ends up playing, he'd prefer it not be a bad guy. Apparently playing the malicious, murderous Vecna on Stranger Things has been getting to him. As he relayed to a crowd at MegaCon Orlando earlier this month, the topic has come up in therapy. “We were going through some stuff, and he was like, 'We really need to make sure that you carve out time for you whenever you're working next,'” Bower said, according to PEOPLE. “I turned around to him, and I was like, 'Yeah, to be honest with you, man, I just don't think I'll be doing another bad guy for a minute.' ”
"Like it f---s me up. I’m dead serious."
I am guilty of watching Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna and thinking, "He's destined to play villains the rest of his life." But that might just be because he's a great actor. I shouldn't judge people just because they stare at my through the screen under lowered brows with eyes so icy they make me feel as though there's no hope left in the world. Besides, if Bower is playing an elf, they're pretty much decent folk to a one, give or take the dark elf Adar, who was added to The Lord of the Rings mythology specifically for The Rings of Power.
As for Stranger Things, Bower has finished filming along with the rest of the cast. Now it's only a matter of waiting until the fifth and final season lands on Netflix sometime this year. “It's been amazing, and it's been an incredible journey, to join the show from season 4, to be part of something that so many people love and something that I loved as well and still love," the actor said. "But I definitely am ready to hang up the foam latex and wish him a slippery farewell."
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