"I didn't even know I was Sauron" - Charlie Vickers on 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power'

Action-packed, brilliant and outright fantastic, Prime Video’s The Lord of Rings: The Rings of Power finale has been all that fans of the franchise were waiting for and more! The biggest jaw-dropping truths about the forging of the rings and the real identity of the looming evil of Sauron were unveiled in the epic episode 8. While the makers of the series kept us audiences in the dark about who would take up the mantle of one of Tolkien's greatest sinister of all time, actor Charlie Vickers (Halbrand-Sauron) divulges on how his character was deceptive but not ever lying throughout season 1. 

Vickers says, "I find it interesting because he is this deceiver and, ultimately, in order to deceive he has to fully embody this form he’s taken on. In order to convince someone like Galadriel, he has to be completely immersed in what he’s doing, which meant for me completely immersing myself in the character of Halbrand. But all the subconscious work of Sauron is there in the back"

Upon finding out that Vickers is infact Sauron, the actor said, “I didn’t know for sure until the beginning of the third episode. We filmed the first two episodes and then the show went on hiatus because of COVID. Toward the end of the hiatus, the showrunners sat me down and told me. I filmed that sequence on the raft not knowing. I filmed it as Halbrand wholeheartedly. But I did have an inkling, if I’m honest with you. My last two auditions were [reading lines from Richard III], and we know he’s not the greatest guy in the world. And then the other audition lines were from Paradise Lost where you’re literally giving the speech as Satan. So that gave me an inkling there was something up. So I was definitely suspicious, but it wasn’t confirmed until right before we started filming the third episode."

While fans cannot keep calm and see where the journey lies ahead for Sauron and Galadriel, season 2 is already in production and eagerly awaited. All the 8 episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are available to stream now in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada exclusively on Prime Video.