In The Rings of Power season three, Sauron is focused on a singular mission of great importance: forging the One Ring. But to get Sauron into the position where he could believably forge his all-powerful weapon, The Rings of Power season three had to first forge an all-new version of Sauron. Gone is the salt-of-the-earth King of Man Halbrand; gone is the wise and ethereal Annatar. This season, it’s all “deliciously evil” Sauron all the time. (But he’s still hot Sauron, don’t you worry.) Forging the One Ring might be a solitary mission for Sauron, but creating this new version of the Dark Lord took the talents of many. During production on The Rings of Power season three, we at Nerdist were lucky enough to visit the set and learn more about crafting this all-powerful version of Sauron. From Hair and Makeup to Charlie Vickers, from Armory to Costumes to the Showrunners, and everyone in between, here’s the full rundown on forging The Rings of Power season three’s evil (hot) Sauron and all the thoughts and work that went into it.
“We talk about him being ‘Full-Metal Sauron’ this season.” Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay share with Nerdist, emphasizing just how different the Sauron we’ll meet this season will be from the past versions we’ve seen. “In the past few seasons, Sauron has been operating a little bit in the shadows. But this season, he’s not pretending to be Halbrand. He’s not Annatar this season. He’s the guy wearing the black leather in the big dark tower of Barad-dûr. He’s making the One Ring.”
In short, Sauron is truly and openly embracing parts of himself we haven’t yet seen in the series this season, which makes for a truly delightful kind of darkness. “Having him get to be the Dark Lord in full is really fun.” Payne notes with a grin and adds, “And you’ll watch him descend to deliciously evil levels that even Sauron has not descended to in our show.” Well, don’t tempt/threaten us with a good time.
Sauron’s actor, Charlie Vickers, echoes these sentiments, offering, “The first season Sauron was very earthy, very grounded, like a man who is one with his tools of being a Smith or one with nature. The second season was all about Sauron presenting a very regal, wise kind of… ‘Wisdom’ was the word I kept coming back to, because he’s trying to convince the greatest of Elven Smiths to follow him… He’s trying to tell him what to do. And it’s like you would only do that as someone who has this sort of otherworldly regality and sense of great wisdom and intelligence. So that’s what season two is about. Season three, it’s all about power and ruling and striking fear into his enemies and his servants, his servants being the army of orcs, and his followers, who need to fear him and worship him.”
And for Sauron, this comes with an appearance change in The Rings of Power season three that’s both deeply nuanced and deliciously petty. “The appearances are really fun, but they have to be justified with his aims,” Vickers notes, reminding us that every choice The Rings of Power makes is laden with meaning. “He’s a warrior this season. And if he exudes power, then his followers can respect him and his enemies can fear him.” But with that said, “He also is feeling himself a bit this season because he feels he’s getting closer to victory… He’s at his most powerful point, so he’s quite vain; he wants to look cool. This season he’s like, ‘I don’t need to do this for anyone else or appear like this to manipulate anyone. I’m going to be this cool for me. I’m going to look cool for me.’” And honestly, we love that self-actualization journey for Sauron; we really do.
But Vickers does pause to remind us that he feels like Sauron is “fully himself” at every step of the way; he’s simply more overtly revealing his Dark Lord aspects this time around in season three. “Each incarnation of Sauron has been Sauron being fully himself. He has to be fully embodying who he is at that point to be convincing. With Halbrand, he was all in, in that guise. Whether it was like he was genuinely hiding from something or whether it was a tool through which to try draw Galadriel towards the darkness… Same thing with Annatar. He was a wise… It was all about wisdom and trying to convey that to Celebrimbor.”
That said, Vickers does feel that Sauron is “closest to the real Sauron” in the sense that he’s the closest version of Sauron we’ve seen that matches “the one we know from popular culture, the guy in the big armor.” And notes, “We are starting to get towards a more recognizable incarnation of that character. But Tolkien was very specific that he had a long journey to go on in order to get to that place. So we’re not there yet. We’re getting there through this age, and I’m excited to get to that point.” And this vision of taking a step closer to the “Sauron we know” but not quite arriving there yet this season on The Rings of Power is a common refrain across departments.
Costume Designer Libby Dempster notes that in The Rings of Power season three, “Sauron just needed to be much more armored.” Adding, “We’re hinting at what’s going to happen to him in the story.” And in the admiring voice of the woman in charge of dressing the Dark Lord, she points out, “He’s got these lovely spiky sabatons (armor designed to protect the feet), and the machinations of his gloves and things are very nuanced and elaborate. It’s like a peek into the future, isn’t it?”
Adding to this thought, Production Designer Kristian Milsted reveals, “It’s kind of really cool because the Second Age Barad-dûr has not really been seen before. So it was important to me that it wasn’t quite as imposing as the later version. So we put it on the slope of Mount Doom, whereas the Third Age Barad-dûr, we say he put that right in the middle of the valley.”
But though Sauron might be approaching his most armored-up, darkest version, The Rings of Power‘s Sauron is so spectacular because there’s still an element of vulnerability to him throughout the story, a continuing depth. Charlie Vickers, who always sees his character in the most nuanced way possible, notes, “There’s almost like a battle weariness to him in the sense that he has a little bit of stubble, he has longer hair, he’s in quite heavy-set armor.”
He adds, “He’s also solitary at the beginning of the season, which I think is quite unusual for him, at least in his journey so far in this show. Because in season one, he journeyed with Galadriel. In season two, he spent a lot of time with Celebrimbor. He had these people that he was using as tools to get what he wanted, in a way. Of course, there were other things that conflicted with that, like the things that developed between him and Galadriel and him and Celebrimbor as the seasons went on. But ultimately, they helped him further his power. Season three, he’s by himself. He’s lost all of those partners on this journey, and he needs to find a way to forge the Ring alone.”
And Vickers goes on to muse with a laugh, “I often think about how Sauron chooses who will be his tailor that decides on how his clothes are going to look or who decorates the inside of Barad-dûr.” But for Vickers, the whole vibe is “emo.” “It’s quite emo, right?” He asks with a laugh, “He’s quite emo. Everything is very dark, and there’s lots of fire, but that whole vibe really informed what we did this season.”
“Moody and dark.” Agrees The Rings of Power season three’s Makeup and Hair Designer, Flora Moody, about Sauron’s vibe. And we guess that’s a romantic way of saying, “Emo.” Moody tells us, “He’s ended up with a really awesome dark wig this season, which is lovely to give him a sort of new look and new armor, because he’s become very bad. Whereas before, he was feigning his goodness, and he was like, ‘I’m an elf with blonde hair.’” She laughs, “He’s going hardcore.”
At first, Moody notes she’d imagined Sauron would continue to be a blonde into season three, but it worked out “amazingly” to change his hair color into something darker because, she offers with a sly grin, “Celeborn ended up being the blonde elf this season.” Make of that what you will.
When it came to finding Sauron’s dark look for The Rings of Power season three, Moody shares, “We tried on every colored wig that you can imagine. We even had Ginger Sauron at one point, and with that we had ginger long, short, mid-length, wavy, curly.” And this abundance of effort really helped to create the final look for Sauron because “When you see everything, you can say what you don’t like. So they instantly were like, ‘We don’t want ginger Sauron. We don’t want blonde Sauron.’ So you refine it that way. And then we just kept on having fitting after fitting. I think we had seven fittings, with different wigs over and over again, different lengths, different hairstyles. So you just refine it and just have the patience to refine it like that.” In addition to finding the right energy for The Rings of Power‘s Sauron, Moody and the team wanted to carefully avoid overlapping on fantasy looks from The Wheel of Time, The Witcher, House of the Dragon, or anything else. It was very important to keep Sauron’s look apart from the rest. And all that patience and careful consideration led to the best outcomes.
Moody reveals, “We ended up with Sauron in a beautiful dark wig that’s slightly longer than shoulder-length. Natural movement; we wanted to keep it all natural at all times. We also didn’t want it sitting too long and heavy, because you always want to see his expressions. So we’ve got it pulled back with slight tendrils that can either be pulled off his face or brought down… If you want him to be even moodier and darker.” And we do always want that. She further adds, “He also has a lovely stubble.” Everyone is loving the Sauron stubble, and we must say, we are also fans.
Even Sauron’s ears have an aura of menace. Vickers reveals, “I like to think of Sauron’s ears. Because before we started shooting, I grappled with, ‘Why does Sauron still have elven ears?’ So I kept trying to think of reasons, like, ‘Why does he still do this?’ But I thought perhaps they could be a trophy. He has conquered Eregion. So he is like, ‘Even though I hate the elves, I’m going to keep your ears and remind everyone that I came to your realm and I destroyed most of it single-handedly.’ So yeah, his personality informs his style choices as well, I think.” We must applaud this level of sheer pettiness.
“Our baseline,” Moody delightfully confirms as we near the end of our conversation, is “Sexy Sauron.” And she teases, “Even if he gets beaten up and bruised, it’s sexy Sauron.” We tell her we might consider beaten-up and bruised Sauron the sexiest Sauron of all. And we all laugh—but we are very intrigued by the possibilities. Is Sauron getting beaten up this season, or was this just a hypothetical? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Ultimately, Moody concludes it was great fun to form Sauron’s new emo look for The Rings of Power season three: “Sauron, he’s on a journey; something is happening to him this season. And if you can switch up anyone’s character and push them into new realms… That’s always exciting.”
And what says new realms, emo, and dark and moody, like trapped souls screaming on your armor? Nothing, if you ask Sauron, or The Rings of Power season three Costume Designer Dempster. She reveals that it was a fun shift for Sauron to be out in the open, not hiding himself, and moving into freedom.
Dempster shares, “He’s got his pauldrons, and they’ve got tortured souls in them. The script called for screaming faces in the armor, and we said, ‘We can do that.’ And he’s also got his gorget. It actually has depictions of Fell Beasts on it. And then he’s got his plates and his cloak. It was all about making Sauron’s fabrics look like they had to have an edge. They’re a bit unsettling.” Beneath the screaming, crying faces of the souls trapped in Sauron’s armor sits a fabric that looks almost like it’s been charred by flames.
We look more closely at the material of Sauron’s cloak in The Rings of Power season three. “So actually it almost looks like graffiti,” Dempster shares, “And it came about from… There’s a book about knights and their tombstones, and somebody graffitied all over one of the tombstones, so that’s where this came from. We want it to look scratchy and eerie. It looks like destroyed runes. It doesn’t actually say anything, but it does kind of look like there’s a message you need to read in it. It invites you closer in a haunting way.” What an incredible and appropriate inspiration for Sauron’s Dark Lord look: the wrecks of dead knights and their tombs.
And like any good god, Sauron has birthed creatures in his image. The Nazgnagôl, who will one day be the Nazgûl or Ringwraiths, but are, for now, still only “Ring Servants,” or the mortal men to whom Sauron has bequeathed his rings, are made in his likeness. “They’re certainly built in his image to a degree,” Dempster notes. “They’ve got similar-style sabatons, which are their shoes, and their gauntlets.” They also have crowns that carry the inscription, “Spear of terror, shadow of despair.” So that’s one more notch on the emo belt.
Speaking of belts and spears. In The Rings of Power season three, Sauron will have a sword of his very own for the first time. After all, he can’t be “Full Metal Sauron” without a weapon or five hundred. Given his new warrior status and the war he’s bringing upon Middle-earth, it’s only fitting that, in addition to armoring up, he’s also wrapping his fingers around some weapons.
Our Master Armorer, Alex Francis, confirms, “Sauron never had a weapon of his own. He’s always had some kind of weapon that came from somewhere else, like when he was in Númenor, and he had that weapon. And so now he’s five years in, he has a forge, he’s got Mount Doom, he’s got everything. And he’s also now got all these orcs that are being blacksmiths. So we wanted to establish that he’s making his weapons. It’s not made for him. He’s making his weapons. He’s trying to make rings. And he’s got this whole forge environment. He’s coming into this new power and this whole new world. So, we were like, okay, well, we’ll take his design from the top.”
When it comes to Sauron’s weaponry, “there’s loads of aspects that we wanted to incorporate.” Firstly, “his weapons contain a nod to Mount Doom,” and they’re all made from volcanic rock. Additionally, the weapons relate to the design of Sauron’s throne, which is, in and of itself, a nod to the imagery of the Eye of Sauron, complete with two intimidating, spiky pillars rising into the sky that frame a very specific stained-glass design. The throne also contains the melted helmets of elven warriors that Sauron has defeated. Additionally, Sauron’s weaponry “is also a nod to his crown,” and the team tried to intertwine and combine all this Sauron symbolism into something that makes sense for the Dark Lord. The same metals and shapes make up a full-size sword for Sauron and also form his dagger.
Once Sauron was established, the armory department used his design to create a whole family of evil, including weapons for the Nazgnagôl and orcs. Alex notes, Sauron “would’ve designed that he’s kind of trial and error until he gets what he wants.” And reveals that the team enjoys weaving Easter eggs into all of their work. “You see how there’s a blade’s edge here?” He points to the end of the Nazgnagôl sword, which has a sort of side section on its blade. “So what we wanted to say is that over time, that would then snap off. And we’d end up with what the Nazgûl sword looks like 2,000 years down the line.”
It’s very clever, and we love the attention to detail. It’s this kind of careful thought that makes The Rings of Power really come to life as we watch it on screen. “We’re trying to add little Easter eggs and little details to things that, whether it gets seen or not,” Alex explains, “Then you can kind of feel that environment and how it develops.”
Of course, one sword and one dagger won’t nearly be enough for Sauron at the height of his powers. Alex shares, “There are all these other weapons that he has on a weapon stand. And each one has its own independent sort of scene and its own environment that it gets used in. So that’s pretty cool. And then we also built him a polearm.” Of course, a polearm (a spear-like weapon). Why not? We can’t imagine our black-leather-wearing warrior god Sauron will cause too much trouble with all these pointy blades… Certainly not.
Now that we’ve outfitted Sauron with his dark, moody hair, his stubble, his armor with trapped souls in it, and his keen desire to descend even further into darkness, sword in hand, there’s only one more thing to do: visit Barad-dûr.
“I’ve never thought of it as his home, but I guess it kind of is his house, right?” Vickers laughs, and then reminisces about Sauron’s time in Barad-dûr this season: “We were filming on days that it was 35 degrees (that’s 95 degrees) in the heat of summer here in London, and then we were setting people on fire on those days, and the flames were massive, and there were lit torches, and there were a hundred people inside this room, which is actually quite small when you’re in it. So that all added to the claustrophobia, and I think that is kind of how Sauron would like his house to be at this point in time. Eventually, though, he’ll be telling everyone to get out so he can have a bit of alone time.”
The Barad-dûr set is beautiful. When we stepped into it for the first time, it really took our breath away. Real torches flicker in pointy braziers, gravel grinds ominously under your feet, and everything has a faintly unnerving sheen of gorgeous evil. The light is dim and yellowy scarlet, and it glints ominously along the mass amounts of black metal that sinuously wind around in the room. Black speech subtly borders the edges of the space, engraved into the walls, echoing the inscription on the One Ring, yet to be forged. And the band of text looks almost like a ring sitting on a gauntleted finger. In the center of everything is Sauron’s massive throne, created from the melted helms of his enemies. Black volcanic stone rises in two columns from behind the seat of power, flanking it. And if one stands directly in front of it, the delicate winds of the stained glass behind the pillars form into the shape of an eye. An eye in between two tall spires. Sound familiar, anyone?
But Barad-dûr should look familiar to you. And that’s because in Tolkien’s world, evil cannot make anything of its own; it can only mimic. Production Designer Kristian Milsted tells us making Barad-dûr was an interesting process: “I had this idea that Sauron was inspired by Celebrimbor. Working with him in season two, crafting rings, he actually learned a lot. And he looked up to Celebrimbor, even though he ended up killing him. So I said to the showrunners, we can show that Sauron has been inspired by Celebrimbor. So Sauron almost copies Celebrimbor and makes Barad-dûr into his own version of Celebrimbor’s grand workshop in Eregion from season two.”
And the showrunners loved the idea and how it relates to Tolkien lore. “Patrick and J.D. were like, ‘This is fantastic because according to Tolkien, evil can’t create. It can only imitate.’ So the whole thing about him being evil is that he’s basically taking things from different people. So that’s really kind of central to the idea of Barad-dûr. So the shape of this space is pretty much identical to the shape of Celebrimbor’s forge. The forge in Celebrimbor’s workshop in Eregion was at the end; then he had his mezzanine office in a certain place; then, in the middle, he had the smaller forge; then he had his workshop down the way; and then an entrance near it. He also had a big window at the end. All of which Barad-dûr uses to riff on Celebrimbor’s forge. Barad-dûr is basically the same shape, but it’s the exact inversion of it.”
Milsted actually takes out the models of both spaces and sets them side by side so I can see exactly how they parallel one another. It’s truly one of the most beautiful story details I’ve seen come to life in any series. The truest epitome of “Show, don’t tell.” By making the space a literal mirror and rendering Sauron only able to copy what others have been able to craft, Milsted and The Rings of Power season three deftly say all there is to say about the character using nothing but clever arrangement of walls and space.
Additionally, it was important for the space to neither appear too refined nor too rough. There’s still something sharp and blunt about Barad-dûr that needed to exist; it couldn’t be as perfectly put together as an elven stronghold. Evil lives here, after all. Milsted notes, “I had this idea that Mount Doom is feeding this whole construction site, which is Sauron’s temple. And it’s built by volcanic rock. It was also important to me not for it to look like a cave or a cabin. So, we introduced these quite gothic-looking columns that kind of hold the whole place. We wanted it to be an architectural space, but it can’t be too architectural because then it becomes too refined. And so it has to have the kind of rough texture.”
Of course, Barad-dûr needs its dungeons, but unlike most dungeons, these dungeons are higher up, not lower down to the ground. Milsted reveals, “We actually find out that it fit better if the dungeons are above the throne room.” Another interesting inversion for Sauron.
Putting the final touches on Barad-dûr and Sauron are The Rings of Power season three Set Decorator Tina Jones and Prop Master John Hajdukiewicz. We don’t have an in-universe answer to Vickers’ question about who handles the interior decorating for Sauron in Middle-earth. But in our world, Jones and Hajdukiewicz are responsible for all his accessories and home goods. They note that Sauron’s crown inspired many touches in Barad-dûr, and that you can see its shape across different aspects of Sauron’s rooms. For example, the chandeliers and braziers in Barad-dûr carry the same distinct points and spires. They also note that all the lights in the space were designed to feel as though they’re “dripping blood.” And there was “this feel of everything being very evil.”
Jones and Hajdukiewicz also particularly love using a specific kind of wood called “bog oak” when it comes to crafting some of Sauron’s things, including the “pillow” his crown rests on. Now, bog oak isn’t a specific kind of oak, instead it is oak that “has been buried in a peat bog for hundreds or sometimes thousands of years.” The chemical process that transpires under these circumstances gives the oak its almost black color. But beyond that, “The more you handle it, the blacker it gets. And the black gets on your fingers when you touch it.”
The pair see this as the perfect metaphor for Sauron in The Rings of Power season three: “The more time Sauron has anything and the more he interacts with it, it just degrades more and more as time goes on. It becomes more corrupted,” Hajdukiewicz tells us. Of course, no one knows that the bog oak will do this, and it’s not really visible on camera, but for Jones and Hajdukiewicz, it’s about bringing a true authenticity of feeling to every creation that goes into The Rings of Power. And once again we have to say, the idea of finding a wood that decays every time you touch it and gets literally blacker and blacker in Sauron’s hands just floors us with its perfect genius. This is the reason why The Rings of Power is such a compelling series to watch and such a fully realized world to enjoy.
Hajdukiewicz and Jones are also responsible for Sauron’s crown in The Rings of Power, and it’s one of their favorite things. Hajdukiewicz laughs and shares, “A crown would normally come under costumes’ remit, but in last season it was only ever used as a weapon, but it was really a non-specific weapon, so armory didn’t want to do it, and so it fell to us. But I loved it. It was the best thing.”
Now there are many replicas of Sauron’s crown floating around on set, so watch where you sit in Barad-dûr. And watch yourself… just generally. Because Hajdukiewicz and Jones have also made Sauron all kinds of torture devices in The Rings of Power season three.
The pair say they love how evocative the scripts are, and that a few lines can often truly capture their imaginations and push them to new creative heights. For example, the pair share that the script noted that Sauron took one of Celebrimbor’s creations, a printing press designed to help men print books and words, giving them a way to hold onto speech, and turned it into a device of great evil, designed to press words out of men instead.
They note, “There was literally a line about Celebrimbor inventing a printing press to give words to men. And now Sauron has taken it and taken words out of men because he uses the torture device to get them to talk.”
Another great example of how Sauron cannot even create torture devices all on his own, but must copy the works of greater men. “It’s meant to be based on a printing press, and the weights are gradually lowering down to press the words out.” Hajdukiewicz laughs. And Jones concludes, “Lines like that spark us the entire time.”
Of course, Celebrimbor himself is hanging in the corner, a mutilated corpse that’s always ready for a chat. Vickers tells us, “Sauron starts in this place of solitude, and he has this great question to answer. Unfortunately, the person that could have helped him answer it, he killed at the end of the last season. So he is almost haunted by that decision, and in that he has spent five years trying and failing over and over again to try to make the One Ring, to find this breakthrough. And the elf that could have helped him is dead because of him. And Celebrimbor is dead. Sauron is creating that image of him, and it’s representative of his insecurities. And it’s quite interesting to join him in that place because we’ve never really seen his interior world like that.”
Ultimately, despite all the darkness, blood, and war that surrounds Sauron this season, Charlie Vickers hits us with the most horrifying truth of all as we head into his journey in The Rings of Power season three. “I think that’s the scariest thing about Sauron is that his intentions are good.” Vickers offers, “Tolkien was specific about that at the beginning of Sauron’s journey, and he just descends into evil. Sauron offers power, but not only power; I think he also offers hope, and it’s kind of through that offer of hope that he gets everyone. It’s like a hope for a better future, a hope for a better life. But I think his using something that’s positive, hope, for evil means, ultimately is quite scary. That’s the scariest thing about him.”
Juxtaposed against everything else, it surely is terrifying. To see exactly what Sauron gets up to on The Rings of Power season three, we’ll have to tune in when the series releases on November 11.
The post The Forging of Hot (Evil) Sauron on THE RINGS OF POWER Season 3 (Set Visit Exclusive) appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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