Villain in the midst: The experiment of Sauron continues in ‘Rings of Power’ season 2

SINGAPORE – Who doesn’t love a good villain?

There’s this elusive pull that only the big bads seem to yield. The idea rings true across most of fiction. And for Charlie Vickers and Charles Edwards, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is no exception. 

“There’s something exciting I guess about watching a villain, particularly in a fantasy world, doing bad things but like, you’re kind of rooting for them?” Vickers told Rappler in an exclusive interview ahead of the show’s season 2 premiere.

Edwards adds: “It’s kind of watching, you know, for people do what we would never dare do ourselves.”

If you’re in need of a quick refresher, it can be recalled that Vickers was first introduced as the brooding, often misunderstood anti-hero Halbrand. 

But since the big finale reveal, Vickers has been thrust to the forefront of season 2 promotions as he steps into the shoes, garbs, and wigs of two powerful entities in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth – Sauron and his alter-ego Annatar.

While the hats he’s been wearing differ greatly from one another, Vickers hopes that audiences will notice the similarities between Halbrand and Sauron, as well as continue to perceive the latter as somewhat of an anti-hero figure too.

“I think, for him, it comes from a place of good. He genuinely thinks, and Tolkien wrote this about him, that Middle Earth will be a better place if he had his will be done,” Vickers said.

For Vickers, there’s nothing but excitement in the air as he looks forward to audiences having more downtime with his characters: “We’re now kind of with [Sauron] on his journey, in the sense that Halbrand, he was kind of removed from us, in terms of, we didn’t know a lot of the time that he was Sauron so we never really got any private moments with him.”

This next chapter will ultimately take viewers on a journey with the famed antagonist, as well as unleash the extent of his abilities, particularly as a master manipulator.

For Edwards, it’s Sauron’s capability to “control the entirety of existence,” as well as his inclination to go about his own bidding on a massive scale that classifies him as a “big threat.”

As for Vickers’ end of the bargain, the deceit of Celebrimbor by way of the otherworldly Annatar plays out more calculated than his predecessor’s strategies: “I think in Season 1, there were some elements of calculation but also a lot of circumstantial things. And I think there are conflicted parts of [Halbrand’s] persona whereas, I think [Sauron’s] on quite a clear trajectory here.”

Vickers puts Annatar’s modus operandi towards the master smith simply: “Everything is created for him.”

“It’s a religious experience when he arrives. So we’re on a different level of manipulation, although Celebrimbor obviously doesn’t realize that quite yet,” Edward told Rappler, referring to the biblical undertones of Annatar’s haunting entrance in episode 2.

The rest of the season will pair the two Charlies, as they’re fondly referred to on set, for more acting-driven, intimate scenes, granting Vickers and Edwards the rare opportunity to flex their acting muscles and “play around.”

“I think part of it is the relative simplicity of what we were doing,” Vickers shared, noting that their on-screen exchanges are reminiscent of a kitchen sink drama. “And that does make it sound quite boring, but it is not.”

“We’re also forging rings,” Edwards chimed in.

“We’re making rings, there’s battles, there’s magic, but we all are also talking in a room,” says Vickers.

But between balancing all the elaborate VFX, sets, and costumes, along with the emotional demands of their respective character arcs, Vickers finds both challenges equally fulfilling as an actor. 

“I think ultimately, whether you’re acting opposite someone really simply or you’re acting opposite someone in a morph suit, who’s like waving a tennis ball around or whatever, both of them are equally fulfilling to me because it’s all our job,” Vickers said. 

The same can be said about Edwards, who takes pride in what both they as actors as well as the creative team have pulled off for this next season of The Rings of Power. “The only thing that does is just enhance your excitement for being there and your desire to nail it.”

He adds: “Everybody there is pursuing the same goal and during our time on that set, we felt that we were proud of what we were doing, and hopefully people are going to be happy with it.”

The first three episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 premiered on August 29. New episodes are available for streaming every Thursday on Amazon Prime Video. – Rappler.com