The Rings of Power star shares reaction to The Stranger's identity reveal

While many fans have seen the reveal coming, actor Daniel Weyman admitted he was left in the dark right up until that scene with Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear) needed to be filmed.

Chatting exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Weyman said: "When we got to the end of using Tom Bombadil’s interior, which was a set in one of our studios, the showrunners called me and they said, ‘Listen, the next scene we’re going to have to film, we’re going to have to film because Tom Bombadil’s set has to be broken down so we can do the next set in that studio and it means you’re going to be filming something out of context, out of chronological order, and it also happens to be the scene in which we learn what his name is going to be.’

"So they gave me a little bit of backstory and they sat me down with Charlotte [Brändström], the director, and they said to me, 'The other beings are going to call him Gandalf.'

"I was pinching myself. I’m a 47-year-old man who’s grown up with imaginative worlds…it made me feel that childish excitement, that imaginative wonder.

"I feel really humbled because I know what that character means to so many people and I feel hugely honoured that The Stranger, who I love dearly, has grown enough to be beginning to turn into someone that people will call Gandalf."

While Weyman didn't know The Stranger's identity throughout season 1 or a lot of filming season 2, the mystery sat well with him.

"Through the whole of season 1, I didn’t really know I was going to be playing a wizard, so it was only at the end of that that we were sure he would become a wizard," he pointed out.

"Then through all of season 2, I knew a lot about what people out here were saying in the real world and friends and family and people on the internet talking about all their theories as to who he might be.

"I obviously didn’t know myself for a long, long time and I was quite happy with that because I was really comfortable playing the truth of The Stranger’s journey which is really landing in Middle-earth to now, that’s all we know of him.

"He hasn’t really gained much past memory of what it was like in the thousands of years, his eternity before this."

Asked what he's excited about should he get to continue to play Gandalf in potential future seasons of the show, Weyman joked: "Eagle rides!"

He added: "I don't know anything about the future [of the show but] what I really am excited by, if people give me the opportunity to take his story on a bit more, is about playing a character whose future on the horizon broadens and his horizon in the past can broaden too.

"He can begin to bring things into his being that have happened tens of thousands of years ago.

"I've read quite a lot of the Tolkien source material on the journey through this project and I love the idea that bits of that might fragment and come through into his being: ideas about the singing into being of the universe, the exodus of the elves, all these things that happened ages ago that might suddenly come back to him and might influence how he behaves in the future."

One person who couldn't bear to wait to find out about The Stranger's identity was Weyman's co-star Markella Kavenagh (Nori), who actually asked the Gandalf question at her first rehearsal.

She told RadioTimes.com: "I've had my suspicions for a little while now, I think in the very first rehearsal I had, I asked whether Daniel was playing Gandalf and [it] was just silence.

"But I think what was amazing was that after that moment, because of what the wonderful Dan said about the fact that The Stranger doesn't know who he is, so we can't expect to know who he is, we just have to follow him along with his journey and help him find his purpose and his home. So I think that was always the focus – but it was very exciting when we found out!"

The Rings of Power season 2 is available to stream on Prime Video now – you can sign up now for a free 30-day Prime Video trial.

If you’re looking for something else to watch in the meantime, check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Fantasy hub. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.