Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is not far off now, and many are wondering who will be playing who, with some potentially familiar faces appearing in the series. The Amazon show doesn’t seem to be using overwhelming star power as a crutch, instead casting many actors who have yet to become household names, though you may recognize some of their faces. One such case is Robert Aramayo, a young British actor, who has will be taking on the role of a young Elrond, and it’s not the first time the actor has portrayed a younger version of a famous character.
Aramayo first got bitten by the acting bug in a primary school production of Bugsy Malone, an almost mandatory primary school play for those growing up in the U.K. At the age of 10, he joined a local acting troupe in his town of Hull, Hull Truck Youth Theatre, and went on to study drama at Oxford School of Drama. In 2011 he was accepted into the prestigious Julliard School in New York City where his performance as Alex in A Clockwork Orange garnered him a role in the film Lost in Florence.
The actor seems to have found a niche in playing younger versions of characters in epic fantasy series. Just as how in The Rings of Power Aramayo will be playing a younger version of the immortal elf, Elrond, played by Hugo Weaving in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he was also cast as a younger version of Ned Stark in Game of Thrones. The actor, also a northerner like Sean Bean, appeared in the sixth season of the hit HBO series in various flashback scenes depicting a younger Ned Stark.
Since his appearance in Game of Thrones Aramayo has appeared in a number of projects including Netflix’s Mindhunter and, most recently, the psychological thriller Behind Her Eyes. He has also had roles in the horror films Antebellum, and The Empty Man as well as a small role in the 2021 film The King’s Man amongst others. With his latest role as one of the main characters in the hotly anticipated The Rings of Power series, Aramayo’s trajectory is only going to keep going upwards.
The show has specifically said that it will be a different version of Middle Earth than we have come to know and Aramayo’s Elrond is no different. Elrond is a lot younger than when we last saw him, with the series set during Middle Earth’s Second Age, which spanned 3,441 years in total. At the beginning of the Second Age, Elrond was a mere infant when it comes to an elf’s lifespan with less than 100 years under his belt. We will see a much less established character albeit one who has still suffered and undergone various trials, though as Galadriel points out in the trailer he has not yet seen what she has seen. Throughout the series, we will hopefully get to watch the character evolve becoming one of the greatest leaders of the Elves in Middle Earth.
You can see Aramayo as Elrond in the Rings of Power which will be available on Amazon Prime from Sept. 2.
