What would J R R Tolkien have made of modern Singapore? The island city-state, with its feats of urban greenification, would have certainly struck the dreamer of Middle-earth. He would have also paused, one imagines, below those tall, scraggly ‘supertrees’ that loom in the bayfront area — but do not of course walk, unlike the Ents of Tolkien’s imaginings. Such thoughts flickered through my mind on a recent trip to the garden city, while covering the premiere of the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, streaming episodically on Prime Video from August 29.
Charlie Vickers as Annatar/Sauron in ‘The Rings of Power’ season 2
Between frequent detours to Chinatown and other food-and-culture hubs across the city, we catch up with the show’s cast and crew. The first season, released in 2022 and culled from Tolkien’s appendices in his epic novel, confidently stacked up multiple dramatic pieces. But now the Jenga tower sways precariously, and all eyes are on Sauron (Charlie Vickers). Initially introduced as a castaway named Halbrand, the supposed king of the Southlands, his revelation as the uber-villain of epic high fantasy left observers reeling. It lurches the show into a darker, twistier terrain.
Sauron rises in ‘Rings of Power’ season 2 | Photo Credit: Twitter/The Lord of the Rings on Prime
“In the new season, we see Sauron going to Eregion to meet Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), who is the Leonardo da Vinci of the elves,” says showrunner JD Payne, who has created the series with Patrick McKay.
“We get to watch him seduce, manipulate and ultimately gaslight Celebrimbor. That process of driving someone to insanity in order to get them to do what you want…that’s where a good thriller really lives.”
There were hints, in the first season, of a complex dynamic brewing between Sauron and the elven-smith Celebrimbor. It’s a relationship built on flattery, egoism, and toxic co-dependency. As with Halbrand, the guise he donned to manipulate the elven warrior Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), the dark lord assumes a new form before Celebrimbor; that of Annatar (‘The Lord of the Gifts’), an angelic emissary, or so he says, of the divine Valar. He’s the Steve Jobs of the Second Age, stopping at nothing before the ultimate ring — the One Ring — is forged.
Payne expands on rooting the new season in character psychology. “We have all known, whether in romantic relationships or friendships or work relationships, someone who has that tendency where they can use you without any remorse,” he says. “As we watch Sauron pick apart Celebrimbor’s sanity, it’s a harrowing thing to experience.”
Charlie Vickers, Charles Edwards | Photo Credit: Twitter/The Lord of the Rings on Prime
None of which, of course, has rubbed off on the actors playing these two characters. Off-screen, Vickers and Edward share an easy bonhomie, going off on tangents and even completing each other’s sentences. Despite their age difference — Charlie is 31, Charles is 54 — they sound like old chums. “From the beginning, there was a genuine understanding between us,” says Charlie. “We have been doing this for five years now,” adds Charles. “Our scenes in the new season are restricted to one set. We both approach our scenes in a low-key way… not low-key as in lazy, we are both quite detailed and perfectionist in our ways. But there’s a real ease that we share.”
Sauron’s manipulation of Celebrimbor is the epochal event that sets the LOTR mythos into motion. “If there was a huge boulder sitting on the top of a hill, we are giving it the first push,” says Charles. It’s also the first instance when, in earnest, we get to glimpse a more earthbound side to Sauron — not the outsized, skull-helmeted demi-god of the film trilogy, but a complex schemer and shape-shifter. All he wants, really, is to bend and organise Middle-earth to his will. Is OCD-ing (at such an extreme) all that evil?
“I want to bring the level of complexity to Sauron that Tolkien wrote about,” Charlie says. “It’s not a tokenistic portrayal where he’s made to appear three-dimensional just for the sake of it. Tolkien was very detailed about how, in this age, Sauron wanted to heal and re-order Middle-earth. For me, the whole character comes from that side of his personality.”
I ask them what a Sauron-Celebrimbor spin-off would look like. This prompts a brainwave that shaves my interview time by half. “Maybe we can be neighbours in a small village in the Southlands, with a pub nearby,” Charles ventures animatedly.
“Right, but you will be very wealthy, Celebrimbor, with a large house and a garden,” Charlie shoots back. “Maybe I can be your gardener. We can call it The Gardens of Power.”
The first three episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 are streaming on Prime Video from August 29.
