Amazon Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings series – titled The Rings of Power – does deviate from the existing Tolkien films in a number of ways. For one, it is set in the Second Age, centuries before the events of the original LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit films. Another chief difference is that the series – for the first time ever – shows the series antagonist Sauron in a humanoid form. And that daunting task falls on the shoulders of British actor Charlie Vickers, who plays Sauron in his Annatar form on the show. Ahead of the release of the second season of the show, Vickers speaks exclusively with DNA on his portrayal and apprehensions.
In Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, just like in Tolkien’s books Sauron was depicted through the emblematic Eye of Sauron, a disembodied giant eye atop Mount Doom, which was an intimidating sight. In The Hobbit, VFX trickery created the Necromancer form of Sauron, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch no less. Hence, the Rings of Power brings the most human-looking form of the Dark Lord. Talking about how tough it is to play an evil intimidating character like Sauron minus the embellishments, Vickers quips, “I do have contact lenses on the show. They make my eyes look kind of red.”
But the actor adds that his goal is not to make Sauron appear scary. “But the whole thing is less about being scary and more about trying to embody the character,” he says, explaining, “I wasn’t going in with the intention of being scary. I wanted to have a level of movement and wisdom and try to cultivate a gravitas. And then let the storytelling create the scariness.”
Vickers, who appears in the second season largely as Sauron disguised as Annatar, a beautiful elven avatar, says that the circumstances should make Sauron scary and not the appearance. “I haven’t seen what happens later in the season yet but I feel the extremity of the situation means the character gets a bit scary himself because the stakes get so high. And if he wants to achieve his goal – to heal and save Middle-earth, things have to get pretty urgent. And I think the scariness comes from that,” he says.
But there was one thing that Vickers was apprehensive about – showing his ankles. In between fits of laughter, he tells us, “I was very inexperienced with robes before this season whereas these guys (his co-stars who played elves) were very good at it. I have got very think ankles so you can’t show that too. That’s not very Sauron. Actually, it’s quite upsetting that one of the first shots of the season is my ankle. Every time I see it, I wish they could have done something else with it. ‘Why are they focussing on my ankles?’ I would ask myself.”
The first three episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiere on Amazon Prime Video on August 29 with the subsequent five episodes dropping weekly through September.
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 "Charlie Vickers as Sauron")
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