Anthem Magazine

Photography: Matthew Cylinder
Styling: Luke Day
Grooming: Jessi Butterfield

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the passion project of Jeff Bezos, and the most expensive series in TV history. The billion-dollar project concerns the Second Age of J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium, turning the clock back thousands of years before the adventures of Frodo and the Fellowship, and—as told in solemn voiceover by Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel in season one—centuries after a great war between Morgoth, a godlike being of supreme evil, and the elves. It’s the sprawling story of how the sorcerer Sauron, a once-devoted servant of Morgoth, first rose to power through the forging of the nineteen rings, which he secretly controlled with the One Ring.

There are entire sagas written in the Tolkienosphere about the creative liberties the show has taken. Certainly, in execution and delivery, if the show isn’t one hundred percent Tolkien—it’s Tolk-ish.

After much speculation and enough fan theories to fill a dwarven mine, it was revealed last season that Sauron was disguising himself as Charlie Vickers’ Halbrand, a mortal with a birthright claim to the throne of the Southlands. This is where things get Tolk-ish: Halbrand is the show’s invention, whereas Sauron’s hotness—the physical forerunner to the inevitable flaming eyeball in the sky—was always canon. And it makes sense that Sauron, or Halbrand, would be seductive in some kind of way. In season two, the Dark Lord dons another sexy visage as Annatar to manipulate, and to facilitate the forging of the Rings of Power. Online thirst for “hot Sauron” is now at fever pitch.

Anthem recently linked up with Vickers in New York City to find out more.

The Rings of Power season two arrives on Prime Video on August 29.

Hi, Charlie.

Hey, Kee.

You’re the man of the hour.

[laughs] Thanks, man.

So you had to tell some lies during The Rings of Power press tour last season. By your own admission, you got quite good at it. Now we all know the truth. Do you feel emancipated?

It’s certainly a relief to be able to talk freely, right? I wanted to do the character justice so I had done all of this research. But during that first press tour, I couldn’t divulge too much because that would give away the secret. It would’ve been like, “Why do you know so much about Sauron?”

The talking points have since shifted to “hot Sauron.” The internet is a funny, funny place.

It’s something that I can’t control. It’s a byproduct. I think it’s cool. I also think that, as the show goes on, people will start to be like, “Maybe he’s not so hot anymore…” As things get darker and more sinister, “hot Sauron” might change to “creepy Sauron,” which I would be happy with.

I don’t know all there is to know about the lore, but Sauron’s hotness is supposedly canon? I mean, that makes sense because, with Annatar, he’s meant to seduce Celebrimbor. Not in a romantic way, but he needs to have weight and a power of persuasion to get those rings made.

Exactly. At least in the way that I’ve justified it in my mind, with the whole Celebrimbor thing, it goes in the way of developing the character. It is canon that Sauron took on a “fair” form so I guess it comes down to how you interpret that word. I took it to mean that he’s kind of royal, right? Royalty. He has to have, as you say, weight or gravitas in order to convince the greatest elven smith in the history of Middle-earth to listen to him, basically. Celebrimbor probably doesn’t listen to many of his advisors. So when I walk out of the fire [this season where Halbrand transforms into Annatar], it’s almost a stunt he’s putting on like, “Look what I can do. You should listen to me.”

I’m coming clean with you, Charlie: I hadn’t watched The Rings of Power until last week.

That’s awesome!

It is, I guess! I mean, this show is brand new to me. I did a marathon of season one and dove straight into season two’s first three episodes that they unlocked for me. What that afforded me is, I got to track the evolution of your performance without this two-year break between seasons. Your level of confidence spiked. Do you think that was inevitable?

When I look back on filming those scenes on the raft when I first started, I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m still really grateful and I loved the experience, but I didn’t know I was playing Sauron initially. I didn’t have the kind of immersion in the role I have now in that sense. I had fully created the world of Halbrand. Maybe I had an early suspicion based off some audition monologues [Vickers was asked to read from John Milton’s Paradise Lost— literally auditioning as Satan], but it wasn’t until I was firmly told I was Sauron that I could really sink my teeth into it and fully embody the character. There were so many unanswered questions at the beginning, I guess. But once you know the whole story, it just deepens your connection to the role and the character. And on a long-form show like this one, the further you go, things become particularly effortless.

Maybe this isn’t the best analogy, but you’re a runner: Is it like breaking in a pair of shoes?

Yeah, it kind of is! Things deepen in a way where you can only learn by doing and going through the experience. And a part of it was that, in the first season, a lot of us in the cast had never been on a set that big. It was about becoming comfortable working in that kind of environment, you know? It is a whole new world stepping onto a set where there’s like 600 people watching your every move. You feel that weight of expectation and, as the show’s gone on, I’ve really been able to just let go of that. Once you understand that you can’t control it, you don’t need to worry about it.

And expectations from the audience, right? These are things that can really distract you. The fans’ demands are unending, and there’s just no winning over a certain sect of your audience.

Once you accept that, you reach a point of going, “I’m just free.” I don’t really read anything anyway. I don’t engage with a lot of the online world. But you still hear things through other people. You hear some of the criticisms. Some criticisms are constructive and useful, and a lot of it is ridiculous. On a broader level, when you sign on for something like this, you have to be aware that with the good are negative things that come into your life. So you have to believe in your capacity to let go of the things you can’t control, like other people’s interpretation of your art.

Does that also mean you’re able to find more joy in the creative process?

Oh yeah. If I’m completely honest, I enjoyed doing the second season more as an actor because of what we’re talking about. You feel very free to play and explore. In season two, Charlie [Edwards], who plays Celebrimbor, and I had so much fun. We formed a really strong connection as a result.

You also didn’t have Covid to contend with this time around. I’m sure that, if you’re in the middle of filming and have to take a sudden hiatus, it breaks the rhythm in unwanted ways.

Exactly. You do get into a rhythm so having that six-month hiatus was a challenge. But I was pretty lucky in that my scenes worked around it quite well. There were other people who were ready to start their first day of filming when we went into Covid lockdown. They were fully geared up and ready like, “I’m finally going on set tomorrow,” after months of preparation. Then they got a call saying, “We’re in lockdown now.” We were all in New Zealand doing pre-production for so long. So for those people especially, it must’ve been a real challenge to have that momentum broken.

This show must be all-consuming. Are you able to find time to work on other projects? When did you film The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and Death in Shoreditch, for instance?

I filmed Death in Shoreditch before The Rings of Power. It just hasn’t come out yet. And I filmed Lost Flowers between the first and second seasons of the show. With the latter, I spent six months in Sydney and Outback Australia. It was a special time. It was an incredible project with Sigourney Weaver playing my mom. I learned so much from being on set with her. She offers you so much time and space. She was an absolute joy to work with. I’m trying to make it a point between seasons to go work on other things. I’m doing the same thing between the second and third seasons of the show. I actually just came back from doing something in Australia, which I can’t talk about just yet. So the show does afford us the opportunity to do other things, which I’m grateful for.

Sigourney Weaver has been on my mind today, actually.

Really?

Well, I just watched Alien: Romulus so I was reminiscing about the classic entries.

There you go!

So when you’re cast, not knowing you’re Sauron, how many seasons are you signing up for?

They tell you you’re on for five seasons. I did a lot of auditions with Morfydd [Clark], and she didn’t know she was auditioning for Galadriel, either. We both just knew we were auditioning for lead characters in The Lord of the Rings TV show. There were seven or eight auditions. For our final audition, we flew to Barcelona to do a screen test for J.A. Bayona. He basically ran a day on set with us doing a made up scene. It wasn’t a real script, but they had built a whole set. There was a crew and they filmed it. That day changed our lives forever. It’s when I got to New Zealand that they told me I was playing Halbrand. They said, “He’s a villager with a checkered past.” Then just before filming the third episode, they said, “Oh, by the way, you’re actually playing Sauron.”

One certainty was that this would require a huge commitment. Was it a no-brainer for you? 

At that stage of my career, it was a no-brainer. I was gonna have a role in The Lord of the Rings TV adaptation! It would’ve been even more of a no-brainer had I known I would be playing Sauron. [laughs] Of course, especially with the first season, it takes you away from home [for the second season, production moved from New Zealand to Bray Film Studios outside London], but I was in a lucky position where I had the flexibility in my life to go and do that. So it was a no-brainer.

How much do you know about your future on the series at any given time exactly?

I know as much as what’s in the public sphere, which is that they intend to go for five seasons, I guess. We just wait for the call or the email that says when we’re shooting. My knowledge is pretty limited. And it’s funny because you do think, “Surely, actors must know a whole lot more when they’re part of big franchises.” But you really find out as you go along, which is part of the fun.

I trust you when you say that, Charlie.

[laughs] Honest! I know very little, Kee…

And you obviously knew that this role would be career-changing, potentially.

It could be the biggest thing I ever do. It could be the most significant thing in my career. So much is unknown working in this industry. It’s not linear. It’s not like you get a job and get promoted from one position to the next. Who knows what’s gonna happen? And that’s also the exciting part of it. I see this life that creative people choose to go on as a series of adventures. It’s like, “I’ll move here and do this role for six months, and I’ll move over there and go on that adventure with a brand new group of people.” And it is a bit different for me at the moment because I have a young family. Your criteria will change as you go. But whatever happens, I will always look back on this opportunity and what it has afforded me with a lot of gratitude. It changed my life.

There was a time when you thought you were playing Halbrand as a standalone character. Then you learned you were Sauron, meanwhile, the audience was still in the dark about your true identity. This season, you’re playing Sauron behind Annatar’s visage. Going through the different motions, has your core approach to the character changed much, if at all? 

I think the core of the character was always going to have continuity and a through line because, ultimately, he is the same character. Sauron is Halbrand. Sauron is also Annatar. Once it became clear to me that I was Sauron, there was more focus. What is his intention, right? His intention is to heal and rehabilitate and unify Middle-earth. Halbrand possessed this idea, too, but he had no way of putting it into practice. When he meets Celebrimbor, that unlocks everything. So they do have the same inner life. It’s just that it manifests differently. Initially, I did a lot of work, vocally and physically, to try and develop a wholly different character for Annatar, doing a complete 180 from Halbrand. But in rehearsal, I realized there were actually more similarities between them than I first thought, particularly at the end of the first season when he reveals himself to Galadriel.

As you say, Sauron wants to rehabilitate Middle-earth. Is he the hero of his own story?

We grappled with this question a lot on set. It is interesting that he has this humanity to him, right? There were moments where I would think, “Should I show emotion here? How would a God process this feeling?” The only way to approach it was from a human perspective. I’m human.

So he’s no villain in your mind.

He is clearly the antagonist of this story, but I don’t approach him as a villain because, as you say, he is a kind of hero in his own story. What’s been really interesting is that we’re now telling the story from his perspective. When I first met with the showrunners, they said, “Halbrand has similarities to Walter White.” And as much as I think that’s a stretch, there are similarities in the sense that you’re watching a character do bad things, while at the same time, taking pleasure in watching them navigate the world through sheer manipulation. It’s Sauron doing Sauron things.

The Walter White prototype is difficult to nail down, and I think it starts and ends with the actor. You have a likable and approachable way about you, Charlie. It didn’t surprise me to find out that you had originally auditioned to play Elrond. The creators clearly saw the potential in weaponizing your charisma to breathe life into a villain that isn’t simply hated.

Aww, thanks, Kee. Yeah, it makes sense for the character, right? Like we were talking about, there had to be a level of seduction—not in the truest sense of the word, but seduction that comes from charm and flattery. He wants to do great things, and he dangles the carrot to get what he wants. So maybe the creators did see that in my audition for Elrond. I think it was actually J.A. who diverted the showrunners. He planted that seed: “Maybe this guy would be a better candidate for Sauron.” Originally, they were looking for someone 40 to 50 years old. In the brief, he was quite a bit older.

Did knowing that Halbrand isn’t canon further embolden you to live and breathe Tolkien?

It’s exactly that. Because he was an original character, I wanted to make sure that he had the essence of Tolkien in him. That’s a really good point. I actually hadn’t thought about that recently.

As you mentioned earlier, you did tons of research for this role. The Silmarillion. Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth. The trilogy of movies, of course. Tolkien’s letters… When there’s so much material, how do you know when to stop? Do you simply run out of time?

I think time is a big factor. There’s just so much stuff that you would never be able to get through everything, you know? You could be reading forever. It’s such a vast, deep world. When I started, because Halbrand was an original character, I spent a lot of time learning about the world in general. There was nothing specifically about him in the research. Once I found out I was Sauron, I could really isolate all the Sauron bits. That’s when I delved into things like Beren and Lúthien. It talks about Sauron a lot. He’s a big character in that. I wanted to find his meaning in Middle-earth.

Do you prescribe to this idea that you should absorb as much as you can, and then throw it all away? Does the research become a distraction if it doesn’t end up in your subconscious?

I mean, every actor has a different approach. There’s no tangible evidence that absorbing things into your subconscious will actually pay off when you’re on screen or on stage or whatever. For me, I just enjoy it, particularly with something like this where the world is so rich. And if I have the time. Whether or not it influences the performance or the subconscious work is gonna have an impact, I wanna learn about things anyway because I’m playing a role in this world after all.

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You entered this show with a tidy filmography, beginning with a first credit on Medici. I think that’s part of your allure. Growing up in Geelong in Australia, did acting seem far away?

Very much so. Australia boasts some of the most amazing actors in the world. Australia is behind some of the most amazing works in film and television. It’s an industry that I love and hope to involve myself with more and more as time goes on. But as a young person, I had no understanding of how to become an actor. I had done plays in school, and that was my only reference point. Where I’m from, if you walk down the street and say to somebody, “I’m gonna be an actor,” they would go, “That’s not something you can do.” So I studied for an arts degree at uni in Melbourne, which I didn’t really enjoy doing. When my brother came back after going abroad for a year in England, he told me about the cool drama schools over there. I went online and saw that one school was coming to Sydney to hold auditions for a day. I went for it without telling anyone. I got in. And then I had to make a hard decision, and it was a scary decision, because I would have to leave my family and friends. I was also with a partner. I had to let all of that go to pursue this. That was another life-changing moment. That was the only way I saw myself coming into this world.

You took charge of your life. Look at you now.

Thanks, man. Looking back, that was a seminal moment. And there’s been a lot of challenges. There’s been a lot of ups and downs along the way. But that’s just part of being an artist.

You’ve previously spoken about having overcome a lack of self-belief to give acting the attention it deserves. Has The Rings of Power filled you up with more confidence? Are you continuing to discover that you’re much more capable than you once gave yourself credit for?

Definitely. You learn as you go. I think what had kept me from auditioning for drama school was that I was afraid of not getting in. And even when I did audition for drama school [The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama], I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t like the idea of telling people I failed if I didn’t get in. I still deal with those anxieties. I think everyone deals with it on some level. I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole life. It’s something you work on constantly. Now I’m always trying to challenge myself and put myself in situations that aren’t always comfortable. I think there’s this trend where people mistake comfort for happiness—the thought that if you’re comfortable and in control, you’re living a happy life. The only way to grow is by stepping outside of your comfort zone. When you do something for the first time and realize that you’re okay and intact, that shifts your perception on things. I’ve definitely grown a lot since those days when I auditioned for drama school. Yeah, I’m realizing that I’m capable of much more as time goes on.

So what new thing are you excited to learn and explore on future seasons of the show?

I’m looking forward to doing more linguistic things. That’s something I haven’t done a heap of on the show so far. I think that will be a real challenge. Tolkien wrote so many different languages and they’re all present within our show. And there will always be some interesting new stunts that you’re asked to perform. It’s a privilege to be able to learn that kind of stuff, like horse riding and freediving. I also want to give a shoutout to stunt crews. They’re so underappreciated. They’re some of the hardest working people in our industry. They put everything on the line, quite literally.