For the manufacturing crew, the most important problem for Season 2 was the bar: “We now have to maintain elevating it,” McKay stated.
That meant extra creatures from Tolkien’s books, together with Barrow-wights and Ents, extra harrowing war-movie-inspired combat scenes and, sure, extra appearances from these pesky titular rings. However the brand new season can be a darker, extra psychological exploration of what heroes and villains have in widespread, and the way evil can manipulate even harmless wishes.
“We had been so hungry for Sauron, for the unfold of evil, for villainy,” McKay stated. “A part of us thinks we’re virtually excessive, however we adore it.”
For Vickers, who performs Halbrand/Sauron, it was a welcome change this season to know he was taking part in a foul man, a truth he found simply two episodes into capturing Season 1. This time, Vickers, who’s Australian, stated he would may get into the function extra deeply. “This time it helped me higher perceive how I wished to current it,” he stated.
Vickers will as soon as once more play a distinct Sauron who seems on the elven smith Celebrimbor. The crew experimented with totally different approaches to the character, together with attempting and abandoning a higher-pitched voice, he stated. At occasions, filming can really feel extra like a theatrical piece, he added, particularly sequences with Charles Edwards taking part in Celebrimbor, whose smiths in Tolkien’s lore be taught from Anathar to make the Rings of Energy.
