“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” has avoided the topic of where Galadriel’s (Morfydd Clark) husband has been since revealing that Celeborn was missing back in Season 1. Now, as Season 3 jumps forward five years (and doubles as a soft reboot), we’re finally going to learn what has kept Celeborn and Galadriel apart for so long. We’ll also finally get to meet the Elf himself, who’s played by Jamie Campbell Bower.
If Bower looks (or sounds) familiar, that’s because the British-born actor has been in a string of high-profile projects over the years. He made his screen debut in 2007, when he played Douglas in the BBC film “The Dinner Party.” That same year, he portrayed the young sailor Anthony Hope in Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” While many actors experience a slow-burn beginning to their careers, Jamie Campbell Bower started strong, featuring alongside the likes of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman in his first year in front of a camera. And his star only rose in the wake of these splashy early projects.
Jamie Campbell Bower has appeared in a number of major films and shows
In 2009, just three years into his acting career, Jamie Campbell Bower landed a role in the “Twilight” series as the cruel and ruthless vampire Caius. A year later, he portrayed a young version of Grindelwald in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.” Bower continued building his fantasy-film career in 2011, when he portrayed King Arthur in the series “Camelot” — once again, alongside a star-studded cast that included the likes of Joseph Fiennes and Eva Green.
Most recently, Bower lit up the small screen with his compelling and terrifying portrayal of Vecna in Netflix’s “Stranger Things.” Along with playing the prosthetics-covered villain from the Upside Down, Bower appeared as the not-so-friendly test subject Henry Creel (or “One”) in the flashbacks at Hawkins Lab. He also looked more like himself when portraying Mr. Whatsit in the final season of the show.
Who will Jamie Campbell Bower play in The Rings of Power Season 3?
In “The Rings of Power” Season 3, Bower will be playing the major character Celeborn, husband of the Elven protagonist Galadriel. Celeborn is present throughout the story in Tolkien’s source material, but showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay have opted to stir up drama between the couple through an extended separation — one that has lasted for hundreds of years before the story even begins.
According to the breadcrumbs we’ve been given so far, Celeborn went off to war in the First Age of Middle-earth’s history and never returned to Galadriel, who is still mourning her long-lost spouse when the show starts. The Season 3 storyline is jumping forward five years, right into the midst of the War of the Elves and Sauron – a dramatic and depressing period of Tolkien’s story, when the Dark Lord Sauron is on the rise. While the promotion for the new season has confirmed Bower’s role as Celeborn, there are many loose ends that remain to be explained, especially the glaring question: How do you lose someone for centuries? Hopefully, Season 3’s Celeborn reveal will be worth the multi-season build-up, and we finally learn what’s kept these star-crossed Elven heroes apart for so long.