EXCLUSIVE: Casting news for Rings of Power Season 3

After the casting announcement for Jamie Campbell Bower and Eddie Marsan earlier this year, news has been quiet on that front. But no longer! Fellowship of Fans is able to exclusively announce that two more actors have been cast for Season 3 of The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power — Elena Saurel and Karl Queensborough, both to play recurring/minor roles.

Both actors have a range of acting experience, across tv, film, short films, video game voice acting and the stage. Queensborough’s most famous role would have to be playing the titular Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton at the London West End starting in 2019, but he has appeared in a number of musicals over the years.

Saurel, who is also a writer and director, has done more television than stage, appearing in the currently running British show Industry, and previously in minor film roles in The Batman and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, as well as the series Killing Eve, among others.

Who could they be playing?

Of course, the big question every fan wants to know is: what characters are they going to play? From a screentime perspective, one might guess their characters are about on a level (or even less) with Amelia Kenworthy‘s Mirdania in Season 2. The Second Age characters with stories written by Tolkien have largely already appeared in the show, or are otherwise the subject of fans trying to manifest them, cough Anárion cough Celeborn cough Celebrían cough cough. None of these could be called minor roles, and Tolkien’s account of the Second Age in between the covers of The Lord of the Rings is only focused on major players in the history of Arda to include specific supporting characters.

There are elves named in The Lord of the Rings that were or could have been alive at the time the show is set, and who could be candidates:  Erestor and Lindir (from Rivendell), or Amdír, Amroth, Nimrodel, and the brothers Haldir, Rúmil, and Orophin (from Lothlórien). In this writer’s opinion, the showrunners wouldn’t use Rúmil of Lothlórien, after name-dropping Rúmil of Tirion in Season 2. Also, aside from Amdír and his son Amroth, we have essentially no indication about what any of these characters did in the Second Age, so using the names would amount to creating a story out of whole cloth, or with at best a scrap or two of future thread to pick up.

Barring a surprise walk-on by a second Wizard in the east, or an unnamed future Nazgûl, it is nearly an open field as to where Saurel and Queensborough’s characters could be placed geographically—anywhere from Rhûn to Númenor—and which of Tolkien’s fantasy races they could be playing. Do you have any theories? Leave a comment and let us know!