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LOTR: Rings Of Power Season 2 Casts Game Of Thrones, Star Wars & James Bond Actors
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 has added three new cast members hailing from the Game of Thrones, James Bond, and Star Wars franchises. The series, which premiered on Prime Video on September 1, 2022, was a huge hit for the streaming platform, watched by 25 million global viewers in the first 4 hours of its release. Based upon the expanded works of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, the big-budget blockbuster series follows the historical events of the Second Age of Middle-earth including the rise of the dark lord Sauron.
Today, Prime Video announced that three new stars have been added to the cast of the expanding Rings of Power season 2. The new members are Ciarán Hinds (Mance Rayder from Game of Thrones), Rory Kinnear (Bill Tanner in Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre), and Tanya Moodie (General Parnadee in Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker). All three will be playing currently unspecified recurring roles in the new season, which is currently filming in the UK.
The New Rings of Power Cast Indicates a Major Shift in Season 2
All three of the new cast members have held other notable roles, including Moodie's television work on series like Sherlock, The Man Who Fell to Earth, A Discovery of Witches, and Neverwhere. Kinnear has also recently made a splash playing multiple roles in Alex Garland's Men in addition to his work in Black Mirror and Our Flag Means Death. Hinds has even received an Oscar nomination for his role in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast, though he also starred in projects including Munich, Silence, There Will Be Blood, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and more.
These three new additions may not exactly be household names everywhere across the world, but they do show that The Rings of Power is making one huge change in its upcoming season. In season 1, nearly every member of the show's massive cast was either a newcomer or a relative unknown. There were only a few exceptions to this rule, including British comic legend Sir Lenny Henry and Benjamin Walker, the star of films including Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power making a move to hire more prominent names is a good sign that the show has a strong future. The megabudget show, which came with a reported price tag over $1 billion, conserved its budget for settings and special effects over casting in the previous season. Now that it seems to be embracing both, this shows that Amazon is confident the show will remain a major hit for some time.
