The Secretive, Extravagant Bighearted World of The Rings of Power, the Most Expensive Show Ever Made

But a fan-favorite character has been missing: Círdan, one of the oldest and wisest of the elves. TIME can exclusively reveal that the character Círdan the Shipwright will make his debut on the series in Season 2 of The Rings of Power.

“We don’t want to give too much away, but one character we’re excited for folks to meet in Season 2 is Círdan the Shipwright,” says Payne. “In the time of our story, he’s the oldest of all known elves in Middle-earth—in fact he lived so long, he had a beard.”

Fans have spent months speculating when and how he might appear in the show. They’ve combed the various trailers and publicity shots. Some theorize that fans have already seen his image—or at least his Annatar guise. But executive producer Lindsey Weber told TIME the prevailing fan theories may be on the wrong track.

When The Rings of Power dropped a new trailer at San Diego Comic-Con in July, fans found a leading contender for Sauron: A new, mysterious character with villainous vibes and a close-cropped, bleach blonde haircut that fans on Twitter hastened to point out was reminiscent of Eminem’s iconic look.

Fans quickly decided that this character was being played by actor Anson Boon. They’re wrong on that count.

While reporting my recent cover story for TIME about The Rings of Power, Weber exclusively shared that the actor in that trailer had been misidentified. The mysterious person is played by Bridie Sisson, who previously starred in Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop. And while Weber would not confirm the name of Sisson’s character, she did offer a tantalizing hint about her origins.

“We are enjoying all the speculation online and can tell you Bridie Sisson is an incredible actor,” Weber said. “We also thought fans might like to know that her character is traveling from far to the east—from the lands of Rhûn…”

The Rings of Power, which debuts Sept. 2 on Prime Video, is already the most expensive show ever created. The showrunners, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, have planned 50 hours of television, broken up over five seasons, and the story is sprawling. They pulled from Tolkien’s appendices, notes the author left at the end of The Return of the King about the events of the Second Age, thousands of years before heroes like Aragorn or Frodo were born.

If you want to watch the series without knowing anything about what might happen in the show, know that this story contains minor spoilers. Stop reading now. But if you want some background on the series and how Payne and McKay cooked up a story from Tolkien’s notes, forge ahead. I’ve seen two episodes of the show, and the information in this story comes primarily from the appendices.

The showrunners spoke extensively with the Tolkien estate

In particular, the creators consulted with J.R.R. Tolkien’s grandson, Simon Tolkien. “Meeting him was the experience of a lifetime,” says Payne. They stayed in touch with the Tolkien family and other members of the estate. “At key moments they would weigh in, and we would write letters back and forth and communicate and make sure we were doing something all of us could agree on to move forward with the story.”