Thanks to Shaun Gunner for bringing these to my attention.

I found reading this 2014 interview with JD Payne quite fascinating, and I think it gives some good insight into one of the showrunners for the Rings of Power. In JD Payne's words, “a showrunner's job is to be responsible for the creative vision of a project, from inception throughout execution—working with a team of writers to develop scripts, and then building an infrastructure of collaborators, creators, artists, and producers to work together to bring the scripts to life.”

Some quotes I feel are particularly relevant:

Patrick and JD's background



Patrick and I met in high school and started collaborating creatively when we directed a short play together for the school’s One Act Festival. We quickly found that the things I was lousy at, Patrick was great at, and vice versa. We continued working together throughout high school and into college. We both went to schools in the northeast, a train ride away from each other. He’d often come down to New Haven for the weekend and we’d go see a bunch of plays and talk about ideas for new projects.
Patrick and I have written something like seventeen scripts together. Each one is a journey, and there’s no one in the world I’d rather have at the helm with me than Patrick. The work itself is a joy, but engaging in it day in and day out with a partner who’s also my best friend takes that joy to an entirely different level.

Inspirations



Patrick and I quote our heroes to each other chapter and verse, weighing them like legal precedents in a court case—Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron, Bob Gale, Lawrence Kasdan, William Goldman; in more recent films, Peter Jackson, J. J. Abrams, Kurtzman and Orci, among others.
I feel like the gospel is like a daily scrubbing that rubs the ever-growing barnacles of cynicism, anger, frustration, and a bunch of other negative mind-states off the hull of my soul, helping me to maintain the optimism, energy, and enthusiasm that are such vital commodities as a screenwriter.

JD Payne is clearly very grounded in his Mormon religion, as these interviews show, and strives to bring his faith and job on a daily basis. Here are the three interviews that Shaun brought to my attention:

Feb 5, 2014: https://web.archive.org/web/2014030521 ... no-mormon-has-gone-before

March 2014: https://mormonartist.net/interviews/jd-payne/

March 2020: https://news-nz.churchofjesuschrist.or ... -careers-around-the-world