The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s Dark Lord Sauron, Charlie Vickers, would like the opportunity to play it cool as Batman villain Mr. Freeze. Vickers played Halbrand in the debut season of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Ring series. Set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, Sauron is in a much different state of being than he is during , allowing the series to use Halbrand as a disguise for Sauron, only revealing his true nature in the first season finale. ComicBook.com had the opportunity to speak to Vickers about the big reveal after the finale. We wondered if getting a taste for evil as Sauron whet his appetite for playing any other iconic villains.
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“All characters, villains or heroes, are interesting to me if they’re complex and If they excite me,” Vickers says. “But there are so many iconic villains that it would be amazing to play. There’s nothing in particular. I’d love to one day — I remember when I was a kid, I went to a theme park — it was Disneyland or something like that — and Mr. Freeze was there, and I think he picked me — they were doing a Batman show, like a parade — he picked me up and ran with me. It was terrifying. I was so scared, and ever since I’ve thought, it’d be cool to play Mr. Freeze in some kind of contemporary, realistic, very sort of dark adaptation. But I mean, that’s a long way down the line, but that’d be cool.
The Rings of Power is likely to keep Vickers busy for a while. The series recently began filming its second season, which will put it less than halfway through the showrunners’ five-season outline for its story.
However, reports do suggest that Warner Bros. and director Matt Reeves are pursuing The Batman spinoffs focusing on members of the Dark Knight’s rogues’ gallery. Mr. Freeze wasn’t on the short list of Reeves’ priority characters (those were Scarecrow, Clayface, and Professor Pyg), considering the tone and atmosphere of The Batman, “contemporary, realistic,” and “dark” seem to be the order of the day.
Vickers was successful enough in his sympathetic turn as Halbrand in The Rings of Powers‘ first season that some fans are still hoping to see him get together with Galadriel even knowing he’s actually Sauron. Considering that, he may be capable of bringing the same pathos to a depiction of Victor Fies based on the classic Batman: The Animated Series origin story episode “Heart of Ice.”
The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is streaming now on Prime Video. Its second season is now in production.
