People find it odd when you're a stranger.
Daniel Wayman, who plays the man known as the Stranger in Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Ring of Power, said he, like audiences, was in the dark about his character's true identity.
“No, absolutely not,” Wayman, 47, told the Post when asked if she was informed when she got the role.
“The Rings of Power” Season 2 will premiere on Thursday, August 29th.
Set thousands of years before the events of Peter Jackson's “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy, “The Rings of Power” follows characters such as the elf Galadriel (Cate Blanchett in the films, Morphys Clarke in the show), Elrond (Hugo Weaving in the films, Robert Aramayo in the show), the dwarf Durin (Owain Arthur), the Harfoot, a type of hobbit, Elanor “Nori” Brandifoot (Markella Cavenagh), and the Stranger (Weyman).
In season one, the Stranger was a mysterious man who fell from the sky.
With no memory of his life or identity and barely able to speak, he ends up traveling with Nori and her friend Poppy (Megan Richards).
It is later revealed that he is an Istar/Istari, i.e. a wizard.
When the first season aired, fans speculated that the stranger could be some of the iconic characters from “The Lord of the Rings,” such as Sauron, Sarumon, Gandalf, or the Blue Wizard (a character from Tolkien's work), or it could be an entirely new character.
Going into season two, his true identity remains a mystery as he continues his journey with Nori and Poppy.
“I didn't know he was an Istar,” Wayman said.
“The process was, we were lucky to shoot it more or less chronologically, whether that was because the showrunners saw the way I work or they thought that was the best way to approach the scenes. I don't think it was top secret.”
In season two, the Stranger remains mysterious but is much more talkative than before.
“One of the ways I like to work is to dig deep and just start reading and see where it takes me. [J.R. R Tolkien]”The great thing is it's never-ending. You can read his work, unpublished stuff, letters, stuff other people have written,” Wayman said.
He added: “But it got to the point where I thought I wasn't going to read anymore, because I didn't want to play him as having that knowledge. The showrunners were very keen that he not have that knowledge. [his memories] “Coming back, this is going to be a long process, so there's parts of me waiting to dig deeper when things happen, and that'll be fun.”
Wayman said he also read “On the Beginning of the World.”
“I thought it would be helpful to have that somewhere in his mind, but he doesn't understand,” he explained.
Wayman said that while he didn't speak much in season one, he felt like Nori and Poppy “gave Stranger the room to speak with his body and with his eyes. He wasn't just a dog on a leash that goes somewhere, they involved him. It was really great to play a character that just listens.”
He continued, “In a way, all the pressure was taken off. It was just me with my wrinkly beard and crazy hair and amazing costumes and being in this amazing scenery with all these amazing actors. So it actually felt like I wasn't doing much acting.”
Now in season two, viewers “know the Stranger more than any of the other characters, because, strangely enough, he has no memory of anything beyond landing in Middle-earth,” he said.
Wayman added that witnessing “scenes of love, kindness and friendship within the Harfoot community” was a “foundational experience” for Stranger.
So when people look back on the character years from now, “they'll think, 'That's where it came from,'” he said.
Although the Stranger does speak more in Season 2, “we were very adamant about making sure the lines were coming from the same place, which is deep down, rather than some guy's brain having it all figured out,” Wayman said.
