Tom Bombadil’s introduction to the screen has been a long time coming for fans of The Lord of the Rings. First introduced by J.R.
R. Tolkien in the 1930s, the character didn’t make the cut in Peter Jackson’s movies. Since then, it’s been a point of concern that we might never see the unique character in live-action.
Thankfully, The Rings of Power solves this in its second season, casting James Bond actor Rory Kinnear as Tolkien’s delightfully mysterious character . However, the actor tells GamesRadar+ that he’s not surprised it’s taken so long to get Bombadil on screen. "Well, I guess with the other adaptations, I think Peter Jackson said it, it doesn't necessarily drive the story on, particularly in the narrative of it," he tells us.
"But in the pages and in people's imaginations, he is this incredible character that has so much knowledge and so much sense of fun and so much life about him, as well as the whole of humanity and history and the earth. This is sort of representative of all that Earth is, and Middle-earth." The Rings of Power, on the other hand, has the benefit of being more long-form storytelling, Kinnear adds: "Obviously over multi-season episodic TV, you’ve got more time to investigate those stories.
In the way that [showrunners] J.D. [Payne] and Patrick [McKay] are telling the story, they're able to create a role for him that isn't necessarily the one that he has in the books.
So whilst they're using that character, they are using him in a dif.