After almost two seasons of speculation, The Rings of Power season 2 finale finally revealed the Stranger‘s identity. In episode 8, after some prompting from Tom Bombadil, he shares that his name is Gandalf, bringing in one of the most beloved characters in The Lord of the Rings canon to the Prime Video show.
However, it wasn’t always in the cards that the Stranger would be Gandalf, co-showrunner J. D. Payne tells us as part of our interview to mark The Rings of Power season 2 being named GamesRadar+’s best show of 2025.
“It took a while for us to get there,” he explains. “There was a time where we were not committed to which of the Istari he would be when we first began. We wanted to have it be a journey of discovery for us along with the character. It was not a foregone conclusion that this is what would come out. So we spent some real time investigating multiple different avenues and really thinking through who this character should be and why and all the rationales behind it.”
Elaborating on when they finally made the call, co-showrunner Patrick McKay clarifies: “You’re ultimately writing to a destination, and I think somewhere early in writing season 2 was clear that this was where we were going.”
Both are clear that it was an emotional choice, given their shared love for J.R.R. Tolkien’s world. “It’s incredibly emotional,” Payne adds. “I remember the first time we saw an assembly of that scene where Dan Weyman says his name and says, ‘Gandalf,’ I got chills, I teared up.”
He went on to explain that it felt “like meeting a childhood hero” for him: “That character is so beloved across so many different mediums, he’s in the books, in the Peter Jackson films, and then to have him come and really be coming of age and go through that growth process, and then really come into his own at the end of the season, and discover/announce himself, was a truly emotional process.”
For more on the reveal, Weyman told us earlier this year that he only found out he was playing Gandalf towards the end of filming season 2. For more, check out our guides to The Rings of Power season 3 and our round up of the best TV shows of 2024.
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