Eddie Marsan's Dwarf Beard Peeled Off in the ‘Rings of Power’ Heatwave

Prime Video's reported $1 billion series returns with four episodes, shot at Shepperton Studios as temperatures topped 90 degrees.

Eddie Marsan's dwarf beard peeled off in the middle of a close-up.

That was a late-June day on the Season 3 set of Prime Video's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" at Shepperton Studios outside London. The thermometer had climbed past 90 degrees and wildfire alerts were up across the region, Variety reported in a Nov. 10 set visit. The season that came out of that shoot premieres Wednesday with four episodes, and two more follow on Nov. 18 and Nov. 25, according to IndieWire. It lands as one of the most expensive shows ever made, and its future still isn't settled.

"Eddie Marsan's beard suddenly peeled off in a close-up yesterday," hair and makeup designer Flora Moody told Variety. Some of that's on her. The story jumps five years ahead, so she made the dwarves much hairier. Their yak-hair beards got longer, more elaborately braided and heavier, and a heavier beard slides once sweat gets into the glue.

The rest of the crew fought the heat with whatever they had. Nearly everyone on the soundstage, hundreds of people, carried a mini fan. Owain Arthur, the show's new dwarf king Durin IV, got the two-fan treatment before cameras rolled: an assistant aimed one at his face and a second assistant kept another on his neck. Costume designer Libby Dempster's department handed out battery-powered ice vests that actors plugged in between takes.

Prosthetics designers Barrie Gower and Sarah Gower oversaw the thousands of fake noses, ears and other body parts used across the show. In this heat, that meant spending entire days poking at actors' faces so the rubber wouldn't come loose. Barrie Gower told Variety that an actor in thick prosthetics under heavy leather costumes turns into a walking sauna.

The orcs weren't faring any better. Variety came across a cluster of them on the lot, still in armor, prosthetic faces and fake eyes, waving fans in a scrap of shade. Asked how they were holding up, one shouted to Variety, "It's hotter than the fiery pits of Mordor!" The elves had it easier. Morfydd Clark, who plays Galadriel, said they suffered less, and Robert Aramayo's Elrond got off nearly free because he doesn't wear a wig.

All that sweat is spread over a lot of real estate. For Season 3, the production took nine of the 17 new soundstages at the expanded Shepperton lot, plus a backlot. Next door, behind nothing more than a white fence, Netflix runs "Bridgerton" out of the remaining eight. Season 1 shot in New Zealand, and Season 2 split mostly between Bovingdon Airfield and Bray Studios. Co-showrunner Patrick McKay told Variety the show is staying at Shepperton for good, and production designer Kristian Milstead said this season wouldn't travel abroad for big landscapes.

On screen, the heat belongs to Mount Doom, where Charlie Vickers' Sauron forges the One Ring. McKay called that sequence the most technically complicated thing the show has ever tried.

Then there's the bill. The series is widely reported to have cost around $1 billion, and Variety noted that Season 2's audience fell 60% from Season 1's. Not everyone's convinced it got better. IndieWire's critic gave Season 3 a C and called it the series' low point so far.

Amazon originally committed to five seasons and 50 episodes, but Season 4 hasn't been officially ordered, despite rumors it'll shoot in early 2027, Variety reported. Clark told Variety she loves working on something with "a couple of thousand people employed to do it," and she's glad every time another season comes. Asked whether the show will get all five, McKay didn't give a yes: "We just keep going."

Source: Variety, retrieved November 11, 2026. Other sources: IndieWire.