Every orc on The Rings of Power has a personality — just ask the folks who made them

Being an orc in The Rings of Power is tough. Like everyone else, you’ve got Sauron, a pillar of evil in the realm, returning to Middle-earth. And on top of all of that, there are a lot of elves who want you dead just for existing. Meanwhile, the entire orc race is just trying to carve out a space in the world to live their lives. 

The struggle for orc rights is an undercurrent of The Rings of Power’s second season, playing out in the background of the battle for Middle-earth. And as such, orcs needed to look a little more distinct than they did in season 1, and there needed to be a lot more of them whose look could withstand a close eye from the camera. Enter makeup and prosthetics artists Sarah and Barrie Gower, who have worked on everything from The Last of Us’ fungal zombies to Viserys’ rotting face on House of the Dragon. 

And for examples of their work in Middle-earth, look no further than Glûg, Adar’s right-hand man and a very important orc figure in season 2.

“He had a lot of dialogue, and orcs don’t generally have a lot of dialogue — other than grunting,” Barrie tells Polygon. “The practicality was definitely something we had to take into consideration.” The goal with Glûg, as with all orcs, was to make him feel like a distinct player in the orc horde. 

He’s one of many orcs getting the “hero” treatment (not because they are inherently good guys, but rather because they are featured prominently). Barrie says Wētā Workshop handled a lot more of the makeup effects, but as the show continues to play up the humanity of orcs, the ability to see the actor beneath the prosthetic became more important. “I think something they were very keen to do in season 2 was expand on the scale of the orcs, and also be able to increase the possibilities of bringing mid-ground orcs and bring ’em forward, front and center, in camera. And not necessarily so much given the dialogue, but having a lot more facial movement.”

Of course, there are a lot of orcs in the back that have less detailed costumes; though you’re unlikely to fully make them out, the Gowers say they developed about 70 rubber pullover masks for background orcs (lovingly dubbed with the viscerally familiar: “party masks”). 

The more bespoke orc looks came from a simpler solution that Barrie calls “mix and match makeups.” 

“We sculpted about 10 or 15 different orc prosthetic makeups over different-sized head casts of different actors. And then we split all the makeups up into different components — so we would have 10 or 15 different foreheads, different cheeks, different chins, different sort of balaclavas with ears,” Barrie says. “And we were able to take a forehead from that, cheeks from that, chin from that, and do this kind of jigsaw puzzle with pieces to create brand-new characters every time.” 

“We went through a whole process of picking people’s faces,” Sarah says. “They had really good structure underneath. So even though you could have the same makeups, depending on that person’s face shape, it could make the makeup look completely different.”

All in all, the Gowers were looking at a group of about 60 performers throughout the season. For each person playing an orc, they had their own set of bespoke dentures and bespoke lenses. “I think we averaged about 20 makeups each time there was a group of orcs,” Sarah says. “And each one of those took about two and half hours to apply before they stepped out on the set.” 

Obviously, they had a springboard for the general look book of the orcs: As fans of the original trilogy of films, they knew what they were working toward. They also sought a lot of reference from the natural world to help vary the vibe from orc to orc. “It’s like toad skin, and animal skin, and reference and colors and how glossy and slimy things are. Our orcs — they’re very sweaty, they’re very glossy; they’re drooling this black sludge all the time,” Barrie says. 

Which brings us back to Glûg, or at least the guy who plays him. Technically, by the Gowers’ recollection, Robert Strange plays four different creatures this season, including a Barrow-wight. But he was predominantly Glûg, who needed to have all the textbook orc traits but could also be a bit more of a character. 

“Not more human — but there’s more personality there,” Barrie says. “We didn’t want to make anything too extreme. We wanted something that Robert could emote a lot of his facial expressions through.”

And while the goal isn’t to make an orc look human, the humanity was something that was certainly considered when designing Glûg, who Barrie calls “probably the most fascinating character” to design. “It was just trying to find the right balance of something that has a slight sorrowness to it, as well as a horrific orc as well. It’s fascinating going back and looking at the makeup test we did with Robert — we’ve got a lot of poses of him growling and smiling, and he looks terrifying. But then he pulls these lovely, sympathetic facial expressions, and there’s so much emotion that comes through as well.” 

The goal, as ever, was to find the right balance of Middle-earth monstrosity and simple, would-be orc citizen. But despite the more human-like eyes, there was one place they had to concede to something closer to home: “We’ve got other orcs that have massive teeth. But we know they haven’t got to actually perform any dialogue,” Barrie chuckles. “With Robert, that was definitely more important to us.”