What was the most challenging thing about bringing this fiery creature to life?
PATRICK McKAY:This was actually one of the most technically challenging sequences weve ever done in the show.
That set, because its a cave, is exceedingly difficult to shoot in.
‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’Prime Video
A cave is dark, right?
But the mine theyre in has this mithril, the Tolkien ore, which sort of shimmers.
So the lighting is complex.
JD PAYNE:Its quite a beautiful look.
Weve spent five years crafting story to build and hopefully we earned that moment.
We decided to let breathe over an entire season.
And even though King Durin made some real mistakes, there clearly was still good in him.
DEADLINE:Another important and surprising death of a major character is Adar, the leader of the Orcs.
Was that his undoing?
Theyre discovering it along the way.
At the beginning of the season, Elrond felt that the rings given the elves are tainted.
But Galadriel says no, theyre okay, and they grappled the whole season over that.
We liked the idea that Adar wants to use the ring as a weapon.
His children look at him and its like, youre not our father anymore.
And so it actually makes him realize, no, this isnt who I am anymore.
Ive become the father of the Orcs.
Thats who Ive lived as thats thats what I would go forward as.
So he gives the ring up back to Galadriel in hopes of forming a partnership.
We love these defining moments.
We love these off-ramp moments.
These are such tantalizing, tragic moments for audiences.
McKAY:Maybe not friends, but they mightve gone their separate ways at peace with each other.
The ring goes away and it comes back.
Whatever evil magic turned him into this, the ring is not more powerful.
That felt somehow thematically appropriate in terms of what the deep metaphysics of the magic in this world are.
DEADLINE:With his sleight of hand, Sauron seemed to be two steps ahead of everybody.
But a surprise came when Celebrimbor got the upper hand just before his death.
Sauron planned to torture Celebrimbor until he divulged where the nine rings were hidden.
But Celebrimbor insulted Sauron and provoked him to finish off the Elf.
And then we see Sauron shed tears.
We see Sauron recover quickly, and get those Orcs on his side, the ones who kill Adar.
You told me at the start of the season you took inspiration fromParadise Lostin creating Sauron.
What were those tears about?
That scene is one of the places we are just in awe of what he can do.
Its the greatest visual effect the show has, and were just in awe.
And I think theres something perversely touching about sharing that moment with someone whos done something so evil.
PAYNE:I really connect with him this moment of vulnerability for Sauron.
Weve been watching him venture to connect over the course of the show.
They lost the war.
He tried it again with Galadriel, inviting her in.
Youre a light to my ambition, peanut butter to my jelly, lets go.
And she said no, she rejected him.
Come on, lets do it together.
And again, he has this partnership, but it fails.
Theres something broken in Sauron, that his partnerships dont work out.
McKAY:Or appeared to.
It was very, very gently laid in, or at least in our minds.
If you watch the season again, Robert Strange, who plays that character, Glug is his name.
Hes covered in prosthetics.
Its a really subtly woven performance that runs through the whole season.
And its easy to overlook because you just think its an Orc.
You guys wrote it; how was he so easily corrupted Sauron?
Hes very powerful, a very canny improviser, and he sees cracks that he can go through.
So Glugs journey with Adar, in some ways he became disenchanted with his own leader.
You cared for us.
Why are you doing this to us?
Which meant that when Sauron came in, there was a vulnerability he could exploit.
And Sauron is just fortunate enough to be in the position to provide it.
DEADLINE:What follows is Saurons near-death battle with Galadriel, who spurned his proposal to rule Middle-earth.
McKAY:We talked a lot about what was going on emotionally in that sword fight.
We were not particularly interested in the acrobatic sword fight.
Sometimes, and you think of Alec Guinness, it can be a great sword fight if its emotional.
Its about the characters.
And so we were really coming at it from there.
Once Sauron starts losing, now hes going to get under her skin.
Hes got to take away the advantage that perhaps her ring has helped her find.
And now hes got to defeat her psychologically.
And thats when he starts, come on, you and me.
In the end, she is willing to sacrifice herself literally to get him out of her head.
There is just a lot going on between the two of them there.
I dont know if any of his offers or entreaties to her are earnest.
I think he just needs those rings, right?
It seems a little bit of connective tissue.
PAYNE:That chapter incident was one of the inspirations for the entire show.
The idea that she must really know herself pretty well and her temptation to evil pretty well.
So were watching her struggle with things shell struggle with later.
First time, he touches the mithril and puts some dark incantation into it.
But with the rings for men, he tells Celebrimbor, I got you the mithril ore you needed.
Its actually his blood.
Youve seen him slice his palm.
Is that a season or two up the road?
PAYNE:Cant comment on that.
All we can say is were deep in the works on Season 3 and its going to be cool.
McKAY:The last time you see Sauron in episode 8, hes now inherited the heirloom hammer.
And that seems to imply maybe the next step in Saurons journey.
But thats all we can say.
DEADLINE:Onto the men that will be given those nine rings, perhaps next season.
They are in a state of power struggles and chaos.
Give us a sense where all that is going?
I mean, its very interesting.
Where is all this going?
Its something you see regularly.
Isildur, the son of Elendil, is going through his own journey in Middle-earth.
Numenor is an amazing kingdom that eclipses anything else that humans have achieved here in Middle-earth.
DEADLINE:And hes just had his heart broken…
McKAY:Yes.
And we believe in investing in long-term growth and change in these worlds and in these people.
So sometimes were laying track here, but theres a plan and its going really good places.
And those actors had really good seasons.
We love what Cynthia [Addai-Robinson] did this season as the Queen.
We love what Lloyd [Owen] did this season.
Lloyd really kind of came into his own as Elendil in a couple of those episodes.
And it was great to get Isildur on unfamiliar terrain, muddy though it may be sometimes.
Which creature felt most rewarding when you watched it play onscreen?
McKAY:Ill call out two of em.
He really spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of life this character wouldve lived.
And that was just infused in all of his expressions.
He even ended up voicing some of the shouts and grunts that the troll makes.
We love the heavy metal score that Bear McCreary our composer came up with for it.
So I think thats one thats really fun.
Theres something so wondrous about it.
PAYNE:In terms of the craft, Jason and his team were at the top of their game.
Hes not just the guy who does the VFX.
Hes an artist and a visionary whos in the tradition of Ray Harryhausen, Stan Winston, Rick Baker.
Hes creating creatures and characters using the state-of-the-art science.
Hes a scientist and a painter at the same time.
And theres so much artistry and character.
Its a performance as much as anything else.
And hes doing it on a television schedule.
It is a feat of magic that he performs every season and were constantly in awe of it.
And were so lucky to be the recipients of it.
Adar seems not to care.
PAYNE:Its a tragic flaw.
Hes trying so hard to protect his children, but hes losing them.
Its a little bit Michael Corleone, isnt it?
Adar thinks hes being proactive.
Im going to bring an army and chase this guy and actually thats exactly what Sauron wanted.
Adars strength and loyalty is the thing that makes him bizarrely noble, despite all his villainy.
It becomes the Achilles heel, his undoing.
Adar plays right into Saurons hand.
Hes holding on so tightly, like pulling a bow string back so far that eventually it snaps.
PAYNE:But he had no choice.
Were going to miss Adar, and writing for that character.
Sam Hazeldine really did an amazing job this season and his performance under all those prosthetics.
DEADLINE:Finally we come to The Stranger and his journey.
By the end, hes called Grand Elf, and shortens it to Gandalf.
He also finds the staff weve become so used to seeing.
He survives the one called the Dark Wizard who proposes the rule Middle-earth together.
I thought that was Saruman, but perhaps that wizard comes in later.
Talk about the wizards, and the establishment of that signature LOTR character Gandalf.
As far as Gandalf, we talked a lot about him over six years.
Its like Christmas dinner.
If you dont have one of those?
The question is, which one?
So he comes to Middle-earth and at first he doesnt know who he is.
And it was a journey discovery for him.
And in some ways also for us at first, we just knew he was a wizard.
Well, gee, close to halflings.
Gandalf says, you know what?
And this is in the books, Im going to go hang out with Tom Bombadil.
I got some things I got to talk to him about.
A lot of things started coming together that really sort of pointed us to this wizard should be Gandalf.
And we love the character so much.
So we went with that.
PAYNE:How do you make aLord of the Ringsshow withoutLord of the Rings most beloved character?
I think at the end of the day, what we came to was you cant.
If theres any way we can justify him being around, its just too tempting to not go there.
Do you feel that urgency and its origins when you write these episodes?
McKAY:All the time.
We want to be true to the spirit of what he was writing about.
And thats the first thing you chuck out.
PAYNE:And theres two things I think really come back to the WWI of it all.
Its the Lost Generation.
I love that literature.
I studied it in college and then wrote a lot of papers about it.
But Tolkien is not part of the Lost Generation.
DEADLINE:It is fascinating he chose to take his experiences and put them into a fantasy.
Sam would ask his father, why does grampa wash his hands all the time?
That was the impetus for that epic WWI film.
Tolkien took that trauma and applied it to create a fantasy world.
I think he was so true to those emotions, even though they were abstracted through Middle-earth.
He didnt want to create an allegory, but his experiences were the terrain that gave birth to this.
And by being true to them, hes created something that is timeless and is true to us now.
The thematics and the traumas the characters go through, I think they do speak to this moment.
Yeah, I mean its canonical.
DEADLINE:Youve said youre into the writing of Season 3 already.
How quickly will this all happen?
Another eight or nine episodes?
Shes a year old now, and people often ask you, any more kids?
And how long will it take to make the next one?
But I dont think, we dont have a date right now.
DEADLINE:What was the Scott Derrickson quote?
Scott said, No one will remember when they got it.
Theyll only remember if it was good.
