Amazon Studios The Rings of Power is here. The Second season will debut on Amazon Prime August 29th of this year. We want all Spoilerites to have the best viewing experience possible and have the widest knowledge base about the Second Age of Middle-Earth. This is a weekly Let’s Get Nerdy article series highlighting a different piece of Tolkien I think you need to know about!
This post contains potential spoilers for The Rings of Power’s second season. At the time of writing these are based on what we’ve seen in trailers and early looks, but if you may want to avoid spoilers come back later and see if I was right!
In the past couple weeks as both The Rings of Power season two and San Diego Comic-Con draw closer and closer and closer more details are trickling out about characters, actors, and storylines coming to the forefront.
First and foremost in the roster of new cast members is: Ben Daniels (The Crown), stepping up to the plate in the role of legendary J.R.R. Tolkien character, Círdan the Shipwright!
Entertainment Weekly broke the Ben Daniels casting news and included:
“The wonderful Ben Daniels is playing Círdan,” co-showrunner J.D. Payne told EW during a visit to the Rings of Power set last year. “He’s a classically trained British actor and brings a lot of wisdom and gravitas to the role.”
“Also, his humor and warmth,” adds co-showrunner Patrick McKay. “We really fell in love with him in The Crown and wanted to work with him.”
Círdan casts such a large shadow over the history of Middle-Earth he even appears in The Lord of the Rings. As Shipwright and Master of the Grey Havens, Círdan pilots the boat which takes Frodo and the other Ringbearers to Valinor.
For a more in-depth info dump on who Círdan is and why he’s so cool check out my Let’s Get Nerdy! feature Who is Círdan?
Alongside Ben Daniels, House of the Dragon actor Tom Taylor (who plays Cregan Stark in the second season of the Game of Thrones prequel series), has been heavily rumoured to be among The Rings of Power roster, per Fellowship of Fans on Twitter:
https://x.com/FellowshipFans/status/1813331950616093089
“Ashley, why are you writing about rumours?”
Well, dear Spoilerite, like TheOneRing.net, Fellowship of Fans rumours have historically turned out to be true.
They followed up the original Tweet soft announcement with some sourcing:
Fellowship of Fans on X (formerly Twitter): “Source: https://t.co/qkxchp1n6v / X”
Source: https://t.co/qkxchp1n6v
No conjecture about who Taylor may be playing in The Rings of Power, although the popular fan theory is he will step into the role of Anárion:
mabe ✨ on X (formerly Twitter): “Some saying he will be playing Anarion and omg I want it so bad pls pls pls https://t.co/DkyfA87qfY / X”
Some saying he will be playing Anarion and omg I want it so bad pls pls pls https://t.co/DkyfA87qfY
Anárion is the younger brother of Isildur and, traditionally, the co-founder and co-ruler of the kingdom of Arnor and Gondor alongside him. There was no Anárion to be seen during the first season of The Rings of Power, although we did meet an original character to the show – Eärien – in the role of Isildur’s sister who, in my opinion, will be serving the same role as Anárion does in Tolkien’s text while adding diversity to the show.
For more information on both Anárion and Eärien check out a Let’s Get Nerdy! feature I wrote last year: Who is Isildur’s sister Eärien?
