Australian actor Charlie Vickers, in Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, delivered scene-stealing performances as Halbrand and Annatar, all while disguised as the Dark Lord Sauron. Now, Vickers is opening up to Inverse, confessing he didn’t know who he was going to play in the series when he was auditioning for it.

“I think I did seven auditions, maybe eight, and all the character name is is a pseudonym, all the sides (were) fake scenes,” Vickers told the publication. He added that the process of auditioning for the J.R.R. Tolkien-inspired prequel series lasted nearly seven months, and he had to do screen tests with Galadriel actress Morfydd Clark, who also was unaware of the part she’d be playing.

Sauron Actor Couldn’t Believe He Got the Part

“Until you get that call, you don’t want to fully believe it,” Vickers said, adding he wasn’t sure if he would wind up getting the part, despite all of the callbacks for screen tests. “When you are auditioning for a role like this, sometimes you’re up against hundreds and hundreds of other actors that have been chosen from a pool of thousands of actors that are probably submitted for these roles,” he said, adding, “You know the odds are against you. It’s a huge privilege even just to be able to audition.”

Finally, when Vickers secured the role, he was off to New Zealand, where Season 1 of The Rings of Power was filmed. It wasn’t until filming was ready to begin that he was told he was going to be playing a character called Halbrand, a refugee from the Southlands, who was a character written just for the show – or so Vickers thought.

Vickers: “The Joke Was On Me!”

Vickers said he immersed himself in everything Middle-earth related. As Vickers thought he was playing an entirely new character, one of his goals was to “make him fit in the kind of Tolkienian world.” He said preparing for the role involved “trying to read as much as I could to try and help myself understand how this original character fit in with all these canon characters.”

However, he soon found out he was actually playing a Tolkien character after all. “But, turns out the joke was on me! He was actually a canon character all along,” Vickers said. Sauron is featured heavily in The Lord of the Rings and Annatar, the Elven gift-bearer that Sauron disguises himself as is a character in The Silmarillion.

Showrunners Say They Were “Lucky” to Have VIckers

The Rings of Power’s showrunners, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay had nothing but praise for their Sauron actor and said they were “very lucky” to have him on the show. They talked about his character in a recent interview with The Direct.

“We felt like we had one opportunity, Season 1, to take Sauron the Deceiver and actually deceive the audience as well, in a way where people didn’t know which corner of the map he was going to come from, and you’re guessing, was it over here? Is it over there? And then ultimately, like, here he’s hiding in plain sight. And that was a really fun thing to be able to do in Season 1,” Payne said of the character of Halbrand.

The Rings of Power was recently renewed for a third season, so viewers will have the opportunity to see Sauron’s evolution. He was last seen brutally killing Celebrimbor and nearly killing Galadriel in the quest to obtain the Rings in the Season 2 finale.

The Rings of Power is streaming on Prime Video.