The Rings of Power Star Breaks Silence on Playing Sauron

Jack Lowden played one of the most important roles in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2, yet he didn’t meet any other stars of the show, and he didn’t spend more than two days on set. The actor played Sauron, but only in the flashback scene at the very beginning of the season, where the dark lord was seemingly killed and his body destroyed. We know that Sauron’s spirit survived and gradually constructed a new form for itself, changing from Lowden into Charlie Vickers. In an interview with ComicBook, Lowden said that he didn’t meet Vickers at all during this process.

“No, I never met [Charlie Vickers]. They just asked me to come do it,” he explained. “I think it was a day, or was it two days? I think it was two days. I was just in, out. I didn’t meet anybody. They just said, ‘We’d love you to play a version of Sauron in front of a whole bunch of orcs.’” While the part may have been short-lived, Lowden said that it was still a huge honor for him to visit Middle-earth at all.

“They’re amongst my favorite films ever made, Lord of the Rings,” he said. “So I was just like, ‘Yes, whatever you need me to do.’ To just be stood there with some seasoned orcs that had been in all three films, to just be stood there watching these guys, it’s just incredible. The makeup and these guys, the way they would move. I was just there. It was just mad. But no, I was kept away from everybody. It was so secret that I was amazed that I wasn’t driven to set with a bag over my head, to be honest.”

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Amazon referred to Lowden’s flashback character as “Forodwaith Sauron,” denoting the region where this scene took place. It showed the Orcs and their leader, Adar, turning on Sauron after the follow of Morgoth. It then briefly showed how Sauron formed the new body, filling in the time until we met him in Rings of Power Season 1. Vickers’ performance as Halbrand/Sauron has been generally well received by fans and critics, while Lowden helped capture the character’s ambition.

Lowden is currently promoting his new movie Tornado, which hit theaters on Friday, May 30th in the U.S. It’s a historical crime drama set in the U.K. in the 1790s, and it follows a Japanese immigrant who encounters a gang of ruthless criminals. Lowden plays a member of the gang, Little Sugar. Tornado is in theaters now.