Jamie Campbell Bower has swapped one of TV’s most draining villains for an elf with a gentler disposition, and he says the change did him good. Speaking to IGN on the red carpet for the New York premiere of The Rings of Power Season 3, the actor, best known for Stranger Things, plays Galadriel’s long-lost husband Celeborn. In IGN’s interview, he called the part “the perfect kind of antidote” to what he did before.
From Vecna to Celeborn
IGN notes Bower has been open about how heavy the Vecna role was. He played the villain, in all his iterations, across the last two seasons of the Netflix series, and prepared through intense, isolating experiences. At MegaCon in early 2025, ahead of the Stranger Things finale, he said he’d told his therapist he wouldn’t be playing another bad guy for a while because the work took a toll on him.
Celeborn is his first role since, and it sits about as far from Vecna as Middle-earth allows. Bower told IGN he’s grateful to join the cast, crew and world, and described the experience as beautiful. IGN adds that he gets to act without prosthetics from day one, which is a visible contrast with the Vecna makeup.
Filling in a character Tolkien left open
Celeborn is a tricky part to play because the source material doesn’t agree with itself. According to IGN, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote several versions of the elf’s origins and never settled on one, so adaptations and Tolkien’s own writings leave gaps. Bower said that gave him a different kind of job: take what’s there, pick out what he related to and what was obvious, then build on top. He said his aim was to bring sensitivity and vulnerability to the character.
The setup in the show is that Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel said in Season 1 that Celeborn hadn’t returned from the battle with Morgoth. In Season 3, which takes place five years after the second season, at the height of the war between the Elves and Sauron, the semi-estranged couple are reunited. IGN says Celeborn appears only briefly so far: in a flashback to meeting Galadriel 1,000 years earlier in Episode 1, and again in Episode 4.
How to watch
The first four episodes of Season 3 are streaming now on Prime Video, which is releasing the season in more than 240 countries and territories. The release is staggered: the fifth and sixth episodes arrive on 18 November, with the final two on 25 November. That’s a faster run than Seasons 1 and 2, which released new instalments over more than a month.
IGN scored the first batch of episodes 8 in its review. The outlet describes the season as a more streamlined war story built around defeating or serving Sauron. All 16 episodes of the first two seasons are also available on Prime Video, which is useful if you need a refresher before Celeborn’s reunion with Galadriel.
When do the remaining Rings of Power Season 3 episodes come out?
Episodes 5 and 6 premiere on 18 November, and episodes 7 and 8 follow on 25 November, all on Prime Video.
Who plays Celeborn in The Rings of Power?
Jamie Campbell Bower plays Celeborn, Galadriel’s long-lost husband. He’s a new addition for Season 3 and previously played Vecna in the final two seasons of Stranger Things.
Do I need to have seen Seasons 1 and 2 first?
Season 3 picks up five years after Season 2 and continues the war with Sauron, so the earlier episodes help. Both seasons are on Prime Video, with eight episodes each.
