SPOILERS are ahead for Lord of the Rings: The Rings Of Power Season 1, now streaming with an Amazon Prime subscription.
With the premiere of the second season of Rings Of Power just weeks away, it’s time to prepare for the wrath of Charlie Vickers’ Sauron. Long before fans were theorizing who Sauron could be throughout Season 1’s rollout, apparently the cast of the Amazon series were of the same mindset on the set. When CinemaBlend spoke to the Queen of Númenor, Tar-Míriel – a.k.a Cynthia Addai-Robinson – the actress shared her thoughts on last season’s massive reveal.
Addai-Robinson worked closely with Rings of Power’s Charlie Vickers throughout Season 1, considering that his character and Galadriel landed on her kingdom of Númenor, and ended up going into battle with her and the civilization’s troops to save the Southlands. When I had the chance to speak with Cynthia Addai-Robinson on the phone, she shared how the revelation that Halbrand is Sauron was concealed on set. In her words:
The last script for the Season 1 finale was redacted. We did not get all of the scenes and it was a closed set when they filmed his reveal. So only the inner inner circle would've known how those things played out. But for the rest of us, we all suspected, right? But it was pretty cool when it aired and seeing people's reactions. And now, I'm happy for Charlie for the fact that he can now just own it and relax and just be the sexy Sauron he was destined to be.
I don’t know about you, but I was completely thrown about the Sauron reveal because he was set up as such an Aragorn type. He seemed like a reluctant hero with a dark backstory, who had a ton of sexual tension with Galadriel and yes, me and my TV set. As Cynthia Addai-Robinson spoke to, the Rings of Power cast had their suspicions about the whole thing as they filmed the first season. She is especially excited that Vickers doesn’t have to walk about set in secrecy and can be the villain he was set up as in the finale.
Following Halbrand’s shocking identity being revealed to Galadriel, one of the showrunners has said Sauron will be “driving everything” in Season 2 and that is somewhat teased in the latest Season 2 trailer. Addai-Robinson also said this about what it was like on set before Vickers could publicly be Sauron in Season 1:
I would say among our cast early on we suspected, but that's only because we were all outside of filming and outside of work getting to know each other. When we were in New Zealand, we all lived within a few miles or blocks of one another. And so you maybe go to somebody's house and I think Charlie had some kind of suspicious items maybe taped to his wall. And so, he was doing very well at keeping it close to his vest. But we're all pretty savvy and people figured it out.
Try as Vickers may, the secret got out, and we’re so curious how Sauron will take on the many characters of the series in Season 2. In terms of Tar-Míriel, we know she will go back to her home of Númenor as a controversial ruler following their losing battle in the Southlands, but will the queen confront Sauron again, and learn of his identity?
The season premiere of Rings of Power comes to Amazon Prime on August 29. Until then, you can also watch Charlie Vickers talk about the reveal during CinemaBlend’s San Diego Comic-Con interview with the Rings of Power cast.
