Hey Charlie, it’s been a pretty big week for you!

“Yeah it has been! I did some interviews this morning and then I went to the gym, went to a cafe, and did a bit of work on scenes I’m filming next week for the second season.”

Now everyone knows you’re Sauron, do you get strangers coming up to you?

“Yeah, they shout kill him! [laughs] No, that hasn’t happened yet but anyone that has said something has always been very nice.”

When did you find out you were Sauron?

“It was half-way through shooting. They took me onto the set in the Northern Waste which Galadriel discovers in the first episode. There are orcs stuck in walls. It’s nasty. They took me in there and they didn’t hail me or anything, they just said: ‘This is your kingdom, this is where you’ve been hanging out – you’re Sauron’. And I was like ‘holy shit!’”

Had you had an inkling?

“Morfydd [Clark, who plays Galadriel] and I were both theorising from the start. We chemistry tested together a couple of times and we were like ‘there’s something going on here’. I auditioned playing Satan from Paradise Lost and Richard III!”

Looking back on season one it’s clear Adar, played by Joseph Mawle, nearly recognises Halbrand as Sauron…

“Yeah, Joseph and I worked really hard in creating that story and it’s something we see more of in the second season. We see Adar and Sauron’s time and how they first connected. Adar’s going to have to do some saying sorry at some point though [for what he did in season one].”

And what about the connection between Sauron and the Stranger, played by Daniel Weyman?

“I’m not sure that Sauron knows that an Istar [the Stranger] has been sent from Valinor. We know [from Tolkien’s writings] that they were sent in the Second Age [when The Rings Of Power is set]. The Blue Wizards were sent and for the record I’m not sure if the Stranger is Gandalf. I know everyone thinks it is, but I genuinely don’t know. Of course he has some lines which mirror what Gandalf says [in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy] but I genuinely don’t know. I don’t think Sauron’s aware of that yet. He may have felt some disturbance when [the Stranger] crash-landed [in episode one]. He may have felt something because of course The Stranger is a Maia too. I think he will be a very troublesome foe in the future because he’s the closest thing to Sauron in Middle-earth in terms of power. I hope there’s some kind of dynamic to come there.”

What else can you tell us about season two – what can we expect from Sauron?

“All I can say is we’re getting into the meat of it now. The world has been established in season one and now we can get into the lore. I’m talking about the stuff at the heart of The Rings Of Power: the Akalabeth [the downfall of the kingdom of Numenor]. Sauron is out there now and there’s no longer any questions or theories about who he is – which is a shame for some I guess. We’re gonna be with him while he’s doing shit, while he’s out there manipulating people and taking on the elves.”

Eventually, he’s going to have to transform into the Sauron we know – would you be willing to get in the suit yourself?

“I have thought about that. When we get to the fifth season, am I going to have to look for another job? It’s one of those things. What did they do in The Mandalorian [when Pedro Pascal took off the helmet]?”

I guess it’s more like Obi Wan Kenobi, when Hayden Christensen suited up for Darth Vader after playing Anakin Skywalker…

“I would love to do that. I would love to do some acting through a suit, even if it’s just with prosthetics and not actually Sauron’s famous big suit [from the films]. There’s so many cool things that our Sauron could be at that stage. I’ve seen interpretations of him when he’s been deformed and artist drawings when he could no longer take his fair form [as Halbrand]. I loved it. So fingers crossed I can eke more time out on the show!”

Tell us about the promised two-episode battle we’re getting next season…

“I haven’t read that yet. I think it comes towards the end of the season. We’ve only got the first three scripts, three episodes. But [showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay] told me about it and it’s super exciting. The best thing is it’s in the lore. If you go to the appendices, you’ll see what’s about to happen. I think it’s going to be pretty epic.”

This year’s hotly-anticipated return to Middle Earth saw a staggering quarter of a million viewers settle in for an Orc-infested ride into all things mythical, with 30-year-old actor, Charlie Vickers, leading the foray. Introducing Hollywood’s newest name, assuming the role of Halbrand, the lost king of the fictional Southlands.

After several auditions – seven, to be exact – and months perfecting the Middle Earth common tongue, the Australian actor wasted no time in syphoning the armour of the cunning character. Vickers might be worlds apart from Halbrand’s machiavellian self (spoiler alert: later to be revealed as Sauron), it’s not Vickers’ first rodeo fabricated a character far from his day-to-day life, playing Guglielmo Pazzi in Medici: Masters of Florence as well as Dan in Palm Beach. Sizing up a plentiful roster, the rising star reflects on the pressure that came with signing onto the major movie franchise and setting his heights high for what comes next.

CATY PENZA: Before we start talking about all things Lord of the Rings, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into acting? What has your journey been like?

CHARLIE VICKERS: I never really considered acting as a possibility at first because I didn’t believe it would be a successful career for me. It wasn't until a couple of years into me studying at university that I realised maybe I could have a go at acting because I didn’t feel any passion towards what I was doing. So I flew to Sydney and auditioned for a drama school and got selected. That’s kind of where everything started unfolding.

CP: Growing up, were there any actors you looked up to?

CV: I was in Melbourne and I went to see a production of Richard III and the leading actor was Ewen Leslie. I definitely look up to him, even though I’ve never actually met him, but his performance was a real catalyst for my career. I’d love to tell him that one day.

CP: Hopefully he reads this interview and finds out!

CV: Yes! That would be incredible.

CP: You play Halbrand in The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, how did you come about getting cast for the role?

CV: It was a long audition process for me. I auditioned maybe six or seven times over a period of six months. I originally auditioned for another character three times, and then got moved to audition for Halbrand. It was a long process, I even flew to Spain to test shoot with J.A. Bayona, who directs the first two episodes. It was a pretty amazing day and it was the last piece of the puzzle to getting the role.

CP: What was it like switching into the Halbrand persona? Did you have to do or think about anything in particular?

CV: I spent a lot of time researching source material. Because he’s an original character, I wanted Halbrand to fit into that world and make sure he had all the talking elements. Halbrand is also very different to me, so I had to tap into things that I wasn’t necessarily used to tapping into. It was so interesting watching the show and seeing that difference.

CP: What was your reaction like when you saw the show for the first time?

CV: It was pretty amazing. We saw it for the first time as a cast in Los Angeles, with a screening of the first three episodes. It was so overwhelming and incredible to see the scope of the show and all my friends performing.

CP: Given The Lord Of The Rings’ hugely loyal fandom, were you at any point nervous about taking on a role in this spinoff show?

CV: Obviously there is a huge amount of pressure and expectations that come with being a part of a world that is so important to so many people, but that’s almost a good thing. Signing onto the show though, there was no hesitation. I didn’t know the full ins and outs of what I was signing onto, but there was still no doubt I wanted to be a part of it.

CP: And how has your life changed since the show’s release?

CV: I don’t go out into very busy settings that much, but, the few times I have been, I have been recognised and everyone has been very kind so I guess in that sense it has changed. But besides that, I tend to lead a quiet life so it hasn’t changed that much.

CP: Speaking of which, what does an average day in the life of Charlie Vickers look like?

CV: My work days and my days off are very different. On a work day, I’ll be picked up very early in the morning and I’ll film all day. But on a day off, I need sleep. Minimum nine hours. I do some exercise when I get up, have lunch and then just sit at my laptop and do some work. I also spend some time with friends and family and if I’m by the coast I’ll also go for a surf, but if I’m in London then I just try and do something fun for the day.

CP: You definitely cannot surf in London.

CV: There is a wave pool I think! But right now it’s limited, yeah.

CP: Where do you envision yourself as an actor in 10 years time?

CV: Working on a project of this magnitude has been amazing, but it’s also given me the desire to work on things completely different in the future. Smaller projects, like independent films or mini-series. I always look for new adventures in my work and I’m open to them in whatever form they may come.

CP: Finally, is anything else currently in the works?

CV: I filmed a mini-series in Australia based on the novel by Holly Ringland titled The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. It’s a story about female resilience and generational trauma. I play the father. It’s a spectacular story and it will hopefully come out next year.

To no fault of actor Charlie Vickers — or maybe to great praise — we knew something was up with Halbrand the minute he picked Galadriel up in the Sundering Seas early on in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Through eight episodes, the reluctant king of the Southlands was always a little out of place among the epic ebb and flow of Middle-earth drama. Turns out, he had a big secret. Vickers was was flippin’ Sauron the whole dang time!

By the end of The Rings of Power, the viewers (plus a few elves) know Halbrand’s secret, paving the way for Vickers to operate an entirely new mode in season 2. But Amazon’s first season was a juggling act we rarely see on TV; the actor had to possess the spirit of Morgoth’s No. 1 guy, while faking it as Halbrand until he made it to Mordor. So what’s Sauron’s actual deal, which Vickers had to let simmer under his skin for those eight episodes?

Over Zoom from London, where he’s currently shooting The Rings of Power, we asked the actor about his villainous journey and where it’s headed next.

Question: In what terms did you first discuss Halbrand/Sauron as a character? What kind of headspace were you in playing the character, pre-reveal, throughout season 1?

Charlie Vickers: I think when you look back to where he is, at the beginning of this season, it’s that he’s in this period where he’s rebuilding. Tolkien talks about him lingering in Middle-earth, and then very slowly he sort of regathers strength and returns to power. And I think we’re seeing him in that state, that kind of repentance stage. The question is whether the repentance is genuine or a facade. And I think you can view the season in both terms, whether he’s manipulating his way through and manipulating Galadriel in order to return to power, or whether he’s genuinely seeking a different life and trying to be a good person. What’s interesting is that those things aren’t mutually exclusive. He could be thinking he’s trying to do one thing, trying to do good, but really, in order to do that, he can’t resist manipulation.

And I think he’s motivated to heal Middle-earth. And he talks about in the last episode, when Morgoth was defeated, “It was like a great clenched fist and released its grasp from my neck. And then I realized I have to undo all the pain that I caused” — something along those lines. And I think he’s trying to heal Middle-earth from the destruction that it’s had over the First Age, to rehabilitate and reorganize it. While these things are a product of what happened in the First Age, and then what’s happened in the Second Age, I also think that he’s had these things built into his being, his personality. This desire for perfection. It’s craftsmanship.

Question: The showrunners, Patrick and J.D., compared Sauron to Walter White in Breaking Bad. Was that a touchstone or were you considering other portrayals of morally poisoned characters? Or even real-life people?

CV: I haven’t really thought that much about real-life examples. I’m very interested in politics, and I did watch a documentary about dictators in history and the way they crafted their rule. But that was more to inform it subconsciously. The Walter White comparison is interesting because he’s kind of an antihero. He does bad things, but we’re on his side. And I think there might be an element of that in our story.

I did find a lot of inspiration in other performances as well, watching different actors play villains. [...] While we were doing this show I was watching The Boys, and Antony Starr did such an amazing job with Homelander. There was an element of things that are going forward with the character. And then in that last scene with Galadriel he has something scary that just sits beneath the surface of what he’s doing. So I was inspired by that. And he has the manipulation without it, most of the time, without being unhinged. I think that’s interesting with Sauron because a lot of villains have this capacity for being really scary in the sense of there’s something out of control. Whereas Sauron is all about control. And there might be elements of his personality where he loses control, because of the circumstances that he’s come across in the First Age, but his manipulation comes through seduction and gaining trust of the people that he comes across. And so it’s quite unique to strike that balance, because he’s not your traditional villain like the Joker.

Question: Speaking of seduction, the introduction of Sauron was one of the Polygon team’s most anticipated moments in The Rings of Power, mostly because we knew from Tolkien’s writing that he was supposed to be, to quote our resident expert, “totally hot.” First off, congrats. Second, did the sex appeal of the character come up? Was it a topic when navigating how Halbrand would play off Galadriel?

CV: [Vickers melts into a puddle of bashful goo before quickly reforming] I think that any complication there in terms of chemistry and romance, it’s something that just naturally occurred, it wasn’t really a conscious decision. I like to think of [Sauron and Galadriel’s] connection to be something greater than romance, but I also think it’s really interesting that some people have interpreted it that way. But I think if that’s a byproduct of what people took from the relationship in the show that’s really cool. Sexy Sauron... that’s all the makeup and costume departments’ work [laughs]. I’m just a pretty regular-looking guy in real life.

Question: Tolkien created so many bits and pieces of history that define Sauron — were there specific “memories” that you carried with you from the beginning? What is Halbrand dwelling on that we haven’t actually heard him admit until the finale?

CV: A lot of the subconscious work was a creating a human life for Halbrand. In order for Sauron to effectively portray Halbrand and deceive people, I think he would have to have a pretty comprehensive life mapped out. I guess all the subconscious work I did was in creating that and then also creating Sauron’s life and really thinking about where he’s come from. It’s a lot of reading, but also a lot of practical things. We were so lucky in New Zealand to have the country. So I went hiking for a long time to create Sauron’s world. I went to Tongariro National Park, which is [what] they used for Mount Doom in The Fellowship of the Ring, the original trilogy. So the subconscious work was all kind of there. And I hope that it informed the performance — I kept that in my mind as we were going

Question: You’re in London now shooting season 2, and while I know we can’t talk about it too much, what do you make of the dynamic between Adar and Sauron? Did that weigh on you in these first episodes, and where is it going?

CV: They have a complex past. They have been in conflict for quite a long time now. We see an element of that in the sixth episode. And I think it’s pretty obvious when you watch the show that there’s going to be more of that relationship. We’re going to learn more about it. So I don’t want to speak too much about it, but pretty quickly in the second season, we learn more about that history. But it is complex, and it has deep roots, and I think that will be exposed as the show goes on.

Question: Finally, where’d Sauron get his black robe? Is there a dress code in Mordor?

CV: Wow, that’s a great question. Did he walk through a village and just steal it from an inn? Or did he, on his way into Mordor, maybe he killed someone and stole their robe? There’s a whole bunch of different scenarios. But you have to have a big robe!

When he auditioned for the Amazon prequel series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” Charlie Vickers did not know he would be playing two roles: the conflicted human Halbrand and the ultimate deceiver, Sauron. But he began to have suspicions early on.

During his audition, he was asked to read pieces from William Shakespeare’s “Richard III” and John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” — “literally auditioning as Satan,” he recalled by phone on Thursday, just hours before the Season 1 finale dropped overnight, on Friday. “That was a bit of a clue.”

But it wasn’t until filming was about to resume for the third episode (after a Covid production hiatus) that the series’s showrunners, Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, took Vickers to the set for an evil fortress, turned to him and said, “Hail, Lord Sauron.”

“That was a seminal moment for me,” Vickers said.

While he missed out on playing the spiky armored version of the dark lord in the show’s prologue in Episode 1 (“I wish that was me!” he said), Vickers went all-in on his Sauron studies, reading “The Silmarillion” in its entirety and combing through obscure passages in Tolkien’s Legendarium as part of his “subconscious work.”

How does it feel to be the answer to the question tormenting the internet? Or if you’re Sauron, maybe you enjoy tormenting the internet.

"[Laughs.] Exactly. Maybe there has been some kind of sick enjoyment that I’ve been getting. Luckily, I’ve managed to stay off the internet, but it’s been hard to avoid. I’ve had friends guessing and telling me I’m Sauron ever since the second episode, which I’ve not been able to confirm or deny. So it’s a relief."

"What’s been so interesting about the show is that it doesn’t shy away from the lore. For the people who know, there are little Easter eggs or hints here and there. When you look back to the second episode, you’re like, “OK, that makes sense in the grand scheme of things.” So I think it’s great that there’s been so much debate."

You once mentioned that you found useful things in Tolkien’s letters, although you didn’t specify which ones. I took that as a possible reference to the period in which Sauron sought redemption. But then the showrunners talked recently about another way to read Sauron-as-Halbrand: as a power addict. What was it that you found in Tolkien that helped shape your portrayal?

"I think the repentant Sauron is a really interesting thing. But I like to leave it ambiguous because it was ambiguous in Tolkien’s writing, such as in Letter 131, and in “Morgoth’s Ring,” in the History of Middle-earth series. He spoke of Sauron repenting “if only out of fear.” I think his repentance is fascinating — and this is why I don’t want to say necessarily how I interpreted it as an actor — because it creates two different [possibilities] for Halbrand."

"If you look at him as if he’s genuinely repentant, and he wants to escape this dark path and live as someone who’s been humbled, then Galadriel inadvertently draws him back to this power. She says to him in the smithery, “There’s no peace here,” and that scene illuminates this whole idea for him of: “Well, you’re right, there is no peace for me as a regular person. My peace is in power. I need to rule. I need to lead.” And she literally gives him the keys to the kingdom and sends him back down the rabbit hole. That is, if you view him as repenting genuinely."

"But, if you view his repentance as an act, then it leans more into his deception, and his deception of her, in that she’s a tool for him to get back to where he wants to be. You rarely see Halbrand alone before the finale, save for this moment when he’s in the smithery, staring at his pouch, making his decision. Otherwise, you mostly see him through the eyes of other characters."

And yet he’s about to cry in that moment by himself.

"I always like to think that in shape-shifting, the best way to deceive is to fully take on the form of what you’re trying to portray: thinking, feeling, living, breathing as a human man. Only through a wholehearted embodiment of his form could he deceive these massively influential figures. This is even when he’s by himself, because the gods are always watching. And we know that he fears the gods; we know that he’s scared. Because Tolkien says that explicitly."

"He can use Galadriel as a tool. She knows the right people. She gets into the right rooms. If he’s by her side, it can only lead to good things, as long as he remains undiscovered. So I made a decision as the best way for me to approach it, to make it real for me. And let people interpret it as they will."

Did you decide for yourself about a lot of little details? Like, what’s in his pouch? Why was he at sea? Was his injury was self-inflicted so that Galadriel would take him to the elves?

"I have a belief about what’s in the pouch, but I won’t share that. Him being at sea may or may not be explored farther down the line. The injury, yes, I think he wounds himself, because he was very aware of what was coming. He thought he had stopped it, but he knows there’s only one way to get out of this mess. He risks this Halbrand form to get to the elves because he understands that the only way he can be healed is through their power and magic."

Do you think he wanted Galadriel to figure it out?

"Yes. He’s ready for her to see him for who he is, and he thinks she’s ready to know it. He makes this pitch to her, and it’s so closely linked to the mirror of Galadriel in “The Fellowship of the Ring.” It gives it an interesting context, I think."

He offers to make her his queen. Is that a marriage proposal?

"That’s something I thought about a lot, but I don’t think so. W.H. Auden wrote an essay on Tolkien, and he said something along the lines of, “Evil loves only itself.” [“Evil, defiantly chosen, can no longer imagine anything but itself.”] So I think in his pitch to Galadriel, it cannot mean that he loves her or that there’s any kind of romantic relationship. There should be no ambiguity around the fact that Sauron is evil — he’s terrible, and he’s using Galadriel to enhance his power."

"Throughout the season, she shows him a different way of ruling and maybe illuminates some things for him. So in making that pitch, I think he’s saying, “Join me and we can rule, and I can coordinate everything and rehabilitate Middle-earth.” But having said that, I also think he would have gotten there anyway without her. He would have descended back into evil. It was inevitable."

Haladriel shippers will despair.

"[Laughs.] Shipping, by the way, is actually a word that Morfydd taught me! Hopefully people will see that any kind of romantic feeling, which couldn’t exist, vanishes into thin air."

What’s the plan going forward, given that Sauron is a shape-shifter?

"There are a lot of twists and turns coming with the character of Sauron. We know that [his disguise as] Annatar is such a massive part of this world, and the prospect of that is really exciting to me. I can’t say much more than that."

"I love that cloak so much! I didn’t get to keep it, unfortunately. I have one gift that was given to me by one of the stunt guys, Daniel Andrews, which is a T-shirt printed with an artist’s image of Halbrand doing the sword flip on the back. That’s Danny’s trick; he’s had it in his stunt arsenal for 30 years, and he’s been trying to get it into a show for 30 years. There’s been nothing released with Halbrand, so I haven’t dared to wear it, even around the house. But that’s the coolest souvenir."

Annatar is the lord of gifts. Did you get or give any gifts on set? Maybe that wonderful hooded cloak you wear to Mordor?