Massive, and I mean massive, spoilers for the Season 1 finale of Rings of Power ahead. Read with caution.
In the past viewers have gotten to know Sauron as a faceless, unknown figure in the Lord of the Rings. However, it became clear during Season 1 of the LOTR prequel Rings of Power that one of the characters we had gotten to know was likely the big bad in disguise. Now, the actor behind the evil being has explained that the villain is kind of a great method actor because of how hard he commits to disguise.
In the finale, we learn that Halbrand, a human, turned out to be Sauron. While there were suspicions about him being the big bad, he was one of the less likely options. The actor behind the character, Charlie Vickers explained to EW why Halbrand/Sauron is able to pull off such great deception without suspicion:
He's like the world's greatest Method actor. He's like Daniel Day-Lewis. [Laughs] He has to fully immerse himself. That was really useful for me, that he would feel and experience things as a human. And then, in the eighth episode, he sheds that, and you really see his full power, and that was a really fun thing to be able to play.
He’s kind of right. Sauron is a fabulous method actor, he really immersed himself into his role and really made us all believe he was a human and smith who was trying to help Galadriel:
Before making this statement, the journalist and Vickers had been talking about Halbrand being the first time we saw Sauron with a face. The actor behind the character explained what filming this was like, and how he made sense of the ways the evil being was able to pull off his plan in deep disguise. He said:
It's super exciting, and I feel really privileged to be able to create this character and depict him at this stage of his journey. He is the deceiver, right? And he's a shape-shifter. He has many powers, but those are two of his main things. So, in creating a human face for him, I like to think of his deception. If he's to deceive Galadriel, if he's to deceive Elendil, Míriel, Pharazôn, he has to be wholeheartedly invested in what he's doing in his deception. For me, it was really useful to think, okay, well, if Sauron is being a human, he would live and experience everything as a human in order to comprehensively create this character and deceive.
And boy, oh, boy did he deceive. Much like Daniel Day-Lewis who truly transforms into his characters and lives with them, it’s clear Sauron has similar tactics, and he is a very good actor.
For a while, a lot of us thought Sauron may have actually been The Stranger, the most mysterious character of the Rings of Power cast. While a lot of fans really thought the Meteor Man was Sauron, lots of others believed he could be the great wizard Gandalf. However, with the big Sauron reveal, and some of the dialogue from The Stranger in the finale he is for sure good, and likely (though not confirmed) the younger version of Gandalf the Grey.
Now that we know who the big bad really is and is not it will be interesting to see how Season 2 opens up Sauron’s story and what the repercussions of his actions will be. Rings of Power was a massive hit on the fall TV schedule. Now viewers can go back and watch all the episodes with an Amazon Prime subscription and try to find hints that could point to Halbrand being Sauron, or maybe it’s impossible because he’s just that good of a method actor.
