Sam Hazeldine is an actor with orcish commitment to his craft. Having inherited the mantle of Adar from Joseph Mawle, the 52-year-old Englishman has stepped into the role of the layered antagonist in Amazon’s colossal fantasy prequel series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In its much-anticipated second season, Hazeldine not only fans the flames of Adar’s zealous resolve, but also deepens his story with a concoction of paternal instincts and ruthless determination — a feat that proves once more that the lines between good and evil are seldom clear-cut in Middle Earth.
When I ask him how he sees Adar, Sam is quick to deflect any rudimentary labels. “I don’t see him as a villain at all, really,” he says. “He’s just trying to make life happen, to give the Uruk a life, really, which he has succeeded in doing at the end of the first season by creating Mordor, and they can live there, hopefully — we’ll see.”
It’s the “hopefully” that stands out. There’s a sense of unfinished business, of a job half done. In Tolkien’s world Adar occupies a fascinating grey space. “For Adar, it’s about a singleness of purpose,” Sam explains. “He has to make absolutely sure that he fulfils his promise to them, really, of protecting them and saving them either from the darkness of Sauron or from the elves who apparently want to wipe out the race of the Uruk once and for all.”
Sam Hazeldine as Adar in a still from ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2
| Photo Credit:
X/ @TheRingsofPower
This singleness of purpose, as Sam puts it, makes Adar a character that resists easy classification. He’s not a mad tyrant or a power-hungry despot — he’s more of a father figure, albeit one with a very large, very dysfunctional (and often cannibalistic) family. The actor is quick to point out the parallels between Adar and the marginalised. “There’s a kind of entitlement there,” he says, referring to the elves. “It’s a bit like a master race thing.” Adar, on the other hand, is simply seeking a home for his people. “He just wants to be left alone.”
The Uruk, in Sam’s interpretation, are his children, and his ruthlessness comes not from malice but from a paternal instinct to protect and provide. “I think his ruthlessness is just about collateral damage,” he says. “He’s not trying to be ruthless, he just has this role he takes very seriously.”
This focus, this singular purpose, is what sets Adar apart from the pantheon of Tolkien villains. Saruman had a deepening lust for power, Azog his bloodthirsty vengeance, but Adar’s motivations are rooted in a kind of dark altruism. Adar is not out to conquer the world — he’s just trying to carve out a small corner of it for his own. “There’s honour there,” Sam adds thoughtfully. “A responsibility that he is beholden to and has to honour.”
But as much as Adar might want to play the role of protector, there’s the small matter of Sauron, the looming shadow that Adar thought he had banished. Season 2 sees Adar coming to grips with the realisation that Sauron is not as dead as he might have hoped. “I think Adar thinks his work is done, really,” Sam muses. “Until Halbrand arrives in Mordor and talks about this sorcerer returning… Sauron is something that he didn’t imagine was going to be a problem, having killed him already.”
This dynamic between Adar and Sauron — both would-be rulers of Mordor, both believing they have a rightful claim — sets up an intriguing conflict for the second season, particularly in the opening episodes. Sam recalls the first scenes he shot with Charlie Vickers, who plays Sauron (in his guise as Halbrand). “It was great working with Charlie,” he says, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “I especially loved our scene in the prison cell… Adar feels like he strongly suspects that he is Sauron. He’d recognized him before, but he didn’t know where from, just something about him. But, you know, a feeling.”
Sam Hazeldine as Adar in a still from ‘The Rings of Power’ Season 2
| Photo Credit:
X/ @TheRingsofPower
The tension in those scenes is palpable — Adar, the fallen elf who has already stabbed Sauron in the back (quite literally), now faced with the prospects of the dark lord’s return, possibly stronger than ever. “It’s unnerving,” Sam says of playing these scenes. “You know, no matter how much we beat him, kind of any human really would have died with the amount of kind of torture he’d been through. But he’s still there, kind of smiling, which is unnerving.”
Mastering the Black Speech, the harsh dialect of Mordor, was no small feat for Sam, who admits to grappling with its complexities on set. “It’s just sort of sounds in front of the mouth but coming from here, guttural,” he explains, gesturing to his throat, his voice taking on a gravelly tone as if to demonstrate. Sam recalls how cue cards were initially considered for his scenes, a safety net he ultimately didn’t need but which highlighted the challenges of performing in a language that feels more like a cursed incantation than dialogue.
But Sam is quick to point out that, as heavy as the material might be, there’s plenty of levity behind-the-scenes to balance it out. “Robert Strange, who plays Gluk, my ‘right-hand Uruk’ and all the orcs have this black stuff put into their mouths by the makeup or props department, and because they’ve got these huge teeth in, they don’t really have any control over their saliva.” The image of orcs struggling with drool mid-scene is as far removed from the doom and gloom of Mordor as you can get, and Hazeldine clearly relishes the absurdity of it. “It’s very disconcerting, and difficult to not laugh. But you get used to it after a while.”
It’s these moments of spiritedness that kept Sam grounded, while immersed in one of the most fantastical worlds ever created. As for his connection to that world, Sam is a bit of a latecomer, at least when it comes to Tolkien’s more epic tomes. “I was a huge fan of The Hobbit when I was a kid, I must have read it 10 times,” he admits. “But I have to admit, I didn’t read The Lord of the Rings. I think I started, but it was kind of quite dense, obviously not Silmarillion dense.” Still, stepping into the shoes of Adar has given Sam a deep appreciation for Tolkien’s world and he seems particularly excited about exploring this relationship in upcoming seasons.
The Rings of Power Season 2 premieres on Amazon Prime Video on August 29
