The Rings of Men now belong to Sauron. The Dark Lord finally got ahold of them in The Rings of Power‘s season two finale. Celebrimbor gave his life trying to keep his final works away from “Annatar,” but while his efforts proved futile the legendary elf did manage to wound Sauron. Why did Celebrimbor’s words and death touch a nerve with Middle-earth’s greatest threat? And what pain does he carry with him? We asked Sauron himself, Charlie Vickers, about all of that and more following The Rings of Power‘s second year.
Nerdist: Why does Sauron cry at Celebrimbor’s death?
Charlie Vickers: I don’t know. It just happened. And that’s the honest truth. As an actor you just put yourself in the moment and if something happens, it happens. It never happened to me before as Sauron and I didn’t want to block that. If they use it, they use it. And they did use it.
But you can justify it so many different ways. He had a great partner in Celebrimbor who was the greatest of Elvin smiths, someone he revered and respected. They could have done really great things together. Celebrimbor could have been an amazing tool, but he killed him. And I don’t think he wanted to kill him in that moment, but he lost control, which is very Sauron. If anything, the tear (he cries) is probably more about his own reflection un himself, what he has become, and his history with Morgoth.
Morgoth was very nihilistic and destroyed everything. He was out of control all the time, wrecking stuff. Sauron didn’t want to be like that at all. And then Celebrimbor says to him, “You’ve become a slave to the rings. They are your master.” Sauron loses control and kills him when he in fact needed him to tell him where the nine rings were. There’s a lot of sadness and anger and grief at the fact, that he’s seeing reflected in his own actions. Exactly what he doesn’t want to become. But then, interestingly, when Glug (the orc) comes in, you see this really quite fast transition into, “How can I twist this now?” And he calls him an Uruk to try and get him on side, which I think is really cool writing. That transition is quite un-human.
I want to come back to Sauron’s pain, but I have one more Celebrimbor question. He says Sauron deceives himself. Does the Dark Lord understand that’s true? Or is he in complete denial about himself?
Vickers: He’s in denial, but there’s probably a little element of him that realizes that. I mean, he’s hugely emotionally intelligent. That’s how he deceives these people. There’s an element of him that would have that self-awareness, that would be, “I’ve gone down this rabbit hole now. And perhaps there is an element of truth to what you’re saying.” But as much as he realizes that, he’s trying to crush those feelings as he goes and advances forward. It’s not until all this is over that he can properly reflect on what’s happened, but at this point he’s descending down the rabbit hole.
Galadriel tells Sauron he needs to heal himself first. What is it that’s truly hurting him?
Vickers: I don’t know. She says that to him and then leaves, and certainly from his perspective and from my perspective, he’s left kind of pondering, “What does that mean?” You could interpret it as he needs to heal the hole that his treatment at the hands of Morgoth left in him. That’s if you really want to humanize the character, which I think is dangerous because he’s not human.
Psychologically, if you’ve been mistreated in your past, you are likely to go on to mistreat others. And there is an element of that with this character and what we explore with Morgoth. There’s a lot of text that backs that idea up, but I think it’s a dangerous path to fully commit to that.
There’s a lot of stuff he needs to heal in himself. He’s got quite a lot of issues, but he’s not willing to deal with that at this stage.
How exactly did the Dark Lord give Adar children? What did that actually entail?
Vickers: By giving him an army of Orcs under his tutelage. Or giving him command of the Uruk, a certain division of Uruk. Then that expanded as time went on.
This is the first time I’m not going to ask you about Hot Sauron, but I am going to ask you about Annatar’s little hair bow. People are obsessed with it. What’s the story behind that bow?
Vickers: :he smiles: The bow. Flora Moody, the hair and makeup person who did the wig. She was the designer. I think she was just like, “we’ve got all this hair here, we have to do something with it,” and just put it into a bow. It’s as simple as that. And I was like, “Okay, I can’t see back there.” It was an idea that people are all around the world would be going to the salon and asking for the bow in their hair, women of America and England and everywhere.
Is it your favorite of all of Sauron’s hairstyles so far?
Vickers: The bow is pretty cool, but I don’t know how long it’s going to last.