Taking on a series set in Middle-earth comes with a nearly impossible set of expectations. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has to feel connected to the world audiences already know and love while still creating characters, relationships and storylines that can stand on their own. For showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, that challenge only grows as the Prime Video series moves into its third season and begins introducing even more important figures from Tolkien’s world.
During Comic-Con, Payne and McKay talked about the lengthy search for Jamie Campbell Bower, who joins the series as Celeborn, Galadriel’s (Morfydd Clark) long-absent husband. They explain why the role was such a difficult one to cast, how a large ensemble allows different characters to move to the forefront from season to season and why the show can’t simply rely on nostalgia for The Lord of the Rings.
The pair also discuss their collaborative relationship with the cast, including Clark, Cynthia Addai-Robinson and Charlie Vickers. And while Vickers may play Sauron, the most evil character in Middle-earth, Payne says that off-screen, he’s one of the best people they could ask to work with. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full conversation in the video below or on our YouTube channel.
I can’t imagine casting this show, but what was the hardest role to cast?
J.D. Payne: That’s a great question.
Patrick McKay: You know what, I would say we should talk about Jamie Campbell Bower for this season. We had a plan from before a single frame of this show was filmed that somewhere along the line Galadriel’s husband would enter the story, or in this case re-enter the story.
But now we’re in the third season, we’ve built our family behind the scenes and in front of the camera. And any time you’re going to bring someone in who has as prominent a role as Galadriel’s partner for thousands of years, the co-founder of Lothlórien, father of Celebrían, that’s a very, very tall order.
And we saw hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tapes and met dozens and dozens of people thinking about who’s the right person to fit into this family, really, and to look right next to Galadriel, that’s a tall order, too. But we were very, very lucky when we found Jamie. And I think the results speak for themselves.
When we started this journey, it was always the idea that we wanted to build this huge ensemble cast, a world that had all of the flavors you associate with a story in the world of Middle-earth, with the idea that then once that is built, different people and different worlds and different characters can take precedence.
We’ve seen in Season 1, Celebrimbor’s a fairly small supporting character. In Season 2, he’s arguably the main character. Likewise, we’ve had crazy journeys with the Harfoots, with Nori (Markella Kavenagh), with Poppy (Megan Richards), through Season 2. And actually, this season, their story’s taking a back seat. But they’ll be back in another form somewhere down the road, absolutely.
Season three seems to move into an even more crucial chapter of the story. What was the biggest creative challenge in reaching this point?
J.D. Payne: The basic job of a storyteller is make me worry, make me care. That’s what you need to do with every storyline around every corner.
And the danger is you could just say, people love Lord of the Rings, they love those movies. Let’s just kind of give them nostalgia and make it feel a little bit like things that have come before and then they’ll show up.
But we said this story has to stand on its own two legs. If you love the things that have come before, it has to feel enough like that that you feel like where you’re like, ‘Ok, cool, this belongs on the same bookshelf as those things.’
It has to be able to be its own story and that’s a great challenge, especially when you have something that is as revered as this material.
Patrick McKay: We love these characters, and we really love working with our collaborators. In the case of today, the people that you’re talking to are our cast and our actors. Everything we write and everything we make is a huge collaboration.
Cynthia [Addai-Robinson] can hit the fastball, so what should we throw at her this time? We’re thinking about that every single day when we’re writing.
The minute the cast comes in, we’re telling them, we think your story should be this season, and then they’re going to have their own ideas. Then it becomes a collaboration all the way, and it always becomes something other than you expected. But it’s impossible to pick favorites.
Every one of these characters is somebody that we love, even when they do things that we might not love. Sauron (Charlie Vickers) is not someone we’re rooting for, but it’s pretty cool to see him on screen.
Is it wild to have conversations with Charlie at this point because he knows everything about Sauron. What is it like to now have an actor who knows as much as you do about this?
Patrick McKay: He’s a great phone-a-friend to have, a great collaborator.
There’s a point of the season I won’t spoil where he needs to hide a particular ring. “Charlie, what if Sauron had to hide a particular ring? What would he do?” We talked about that and cooked up an idea that will pay off down the road somewhere.
J.D. Payne: Charlie is delightful to work with. He always brings such strong instincts to the performance. He’s incredibly user-friendly as an actor to work with. He shows up, he does the work and all the drama is on the screen, no drama off-screen. It’s ironic because the most evil person in Middle-earth is one of the best humans on Earth.
