Prime Video confirmed Tolkien fan-favorite character Tom Bombadil will show up in season two of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The first four photos released show BAFTA nominee Rory Kinnear (Men, The Imitation Game) is taking on the beloved character in season two. Prime Video announced Kinnear’s casting back in March 2023 but didn’t indicate who he’d be playing.
Discussing Tom Bombadil, showrunner Patrick McKay said, “He’s whimsical and magical, and almost verging on silly. But also has the wisdom of the ages and the music of the spheres and deep emotional wells of ancient history and myth, and his conception and function are tied to Norse myths and have deep roots in European fairy tale.”
“So weirdly, he’s kind of the most Lord of the Rings thing in Lord of the Rings,” added co-showrunner J. D. Payne. “Tom is sort of a curiosity within that structure because while it is darker, Tom Bombadil is singing and saying lines that could be nursery rhymes from children’s poems. So, he sort of defies the tonal shift of the rest of the season and is a real point of light amidst an otherwise sea of darkness.”
Prime Video offered this description of Tom Bombadil:
- Rory Kinnear plays “Tom Bombadil” a figure of unknown origin in Tolkien’s works who projects a timeless wisdom, often propelling characters in a direction to see things more clearly and helping them better understand the wide world around them. In the lore, he claims to be as old as Middle-earth itself, possessing wisdom far beyond the reaches of others. Essential to the spirit of discovery and of the search for meaning, Bombadil is famously clad in yellow boots, blue jacket, and a feathered hat, and prone to enigmatic expressions in singsong verse.
“There’s this sense of huge experience, huge openness, huge empathy, and having gone through so much that he [Bombadil] knows it’s the small things that are important,” offered Kinnear. “That felt actually quite domestic, felt quite reachable in terms of my understanding of who he was.”
Season two premieres on August 29, 2024.
This post was last modified on July 12, 2024 12:38 am