Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz star Simon Pegg has joined The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three. But it’s in just about the last role you’d expect. Yes, it turns out in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Simon Pegg will voice the Balrog, a powerful spirit turned demon that lurks in the bowels of Khazad-dûm. The Balrog famously appeared in the “You shall not pass,” scene where it drags Gandalf (the Grey) to his death. But it has never before SPOKEN! What does a Balrog have to say to us, we don’t know but it will say it in Simon Peggs voice.
Simon Pegg Will Voice the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3
A release from Prime Video reveals, “The Balrog Speaks! And it’s Simon Pegg!” In The Rings of Power season three, we will see “the return of the fiery Balrog, who for the first time ever will speak – and that voice is revealed to be none other than acclaimed actor Simon Pegg.) We can’t imagine the Balrog is in a very funny mood… So it will be fascinating to see how Pegg will go about voicing this The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power creature.
What’s the Balrog Up to in The Rings of Power Season 3?
We last saw the Balrog when it faced off against King Durin III in the depths of Khazad-dûm. After receiving a ring from Sauron, under the guise of Annatar, King Durin became bewitched by its evil powers and mad with greed. He dug too deep into the mountain in a hunt for mithril, a rare dwarven metal ore. And when he disturbed the mountain, he awoke a great evil sleeping within it, the Balrog. In The Rings of Power season two, the Balrog did not speak, but it did clash with King Durin III, who eventually came to see the evil of the ring, removed it, and then sacrificed himself to tumble the creature back into the dark and encase it with falling rocks.
But since Simon Pegg will voice the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three, it’s clear the creature survived. And given that Durin IV and the rest of the dwarves are still in possession of Sauron’s rings of power, which we know they will come to where, it’s likely only a matter of time before the evil of the rings, the greed of the dwarves, or both, call the Balrog back to the surface. That’s bad news for Khazad-dûm, which is eventually destroyed by a Balrog called “Durin’s Bane,”… although technically it happens after the scope of The Rings of Power, in the third age of Middle-earth.
The Rings of Power shares that in season three, we’ll get to see “what the Balrog looks like when it’s simmering.”
Sauron and the Balrog Will Have a Conversation as Equals (Maiar)
In addition to whatever will happen between the Balrog and the Dwarves in The Rings of Power, Simon Pegg’s Balrog will be speaking to another dark entity, Sauron. At SDCC, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay revealed that Sauron would actually be coming to the Balrog for advice on how to forge the One Ring. After all, the showrunners explain, the Balrog is a creature who lives in molten flame and fire. And to forge the One Ring, Sauron is going to have to survive in the fires of Mount Doom. So it does stand to reason Sauron would come to the Balrog for advice.
Additionally, in a way, Sauron and the Balrog are equals the way few other creatures in Middle-earth are. Both Sauron and the Balrog are Maiar, or a class of powerful beings that exist in Middle-earth. These Maiar are spirits created by Eru Ilúvatar, the god of Middle-earth, before the physical world came to exist. They helped Eru Ilúvatar shape the world—but some, like the Balrog and Sauron, became corrupted by the evil of Morgoth. It will be interesting to see Sauron have a conversation with someone as powerful as he is when he speaks to Simon Pegg’s Balrog. We get a glimpse of the interaction between Pegg’s Balrog and Sauron in the featurette below. And it does seem, in a word, epic.
What Will Simon Pegg’s Balrog Have to Say? What Will the Balrog Sound Like?
Honestly, what does an all-powerful demon-creature say to the nuisances disturbing its rest? That sounds like a bad joke, but we’re honestly excited to find out. We can’t help but imagine the Pegg-voiced Balrog lodging several complaints about needing its beauty sleep. But… perhaps he will have that advice that Sauron seeks.
Simon Pegg shares that his father read him The Hobbit and he can remember him doing all of the voices, so voicing a character on The Rings of Power has really been in Pegg’s DNA. Meanwhile, Sauron actor, Charlie Vickers, reveals that one of Simon Pegg’s children actually has a Balrog toy. So, whatever the Balrog will sound like, we bet Pegg will do an incredible job.
Other Creatures in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Seeing Tolkien’s creatures come to life is one of our favorite parts of The Rings of Power. In addition to Pegg’s Balrog, a San Diego Comic-Con featurette titled “Bringing Season Three’s Creatures to Life” teased other creatures we will see. Coming to us in season three of The Rings of Power are “Fell-beasts, the war elephants known as Mûmakil, Orcs, and more.” Are orcs “creatures”? We’ll debate that later.
What are the other creatures named in this The Rings of Power featurette, though?
What Is the Fell-Beast?
Fell-beasts, also called “hell-hawks” or “Nazgûl-birds,” is the catch-all name for a certain kind of terrible, monstrous winged creature in The Lord of the Rings lore. These fell-beasts will become the mounts for the Nazgûl/ring wraiths, the nine human kings corrupted by the power of Sauron’s rings for men and turned into Sauron’s horrible servants, devoted to the One Ring and Sauron’s evil.
In the book, Tolkien describes Fell-beasts as pterodactyl-like, with a long neck, beak, and claws. They were also quite stinky. In The Rings of Power, the creators share that these are “creatures that flap, rise, and then fall.” And at SDCC, the showrunners shared that they saw the fell-beasts as corrupted Great Eagles, an idea that makes a ton of sense to us. As we’ve written before, “In Tolkien’s lore, great eagles are seen as messengers of Manwë, the greatest god of Middle-earth. They serve to deliver messages for the god and also act as his spies.”
Fell-beasts help to do exactly this, but for Sauron. And as Sauron himself is a corrupted servant of the gods, it makes sense that his creatures are as well. Poetic!
What Is the Mûmakil?
Meanwhile, Mûmakil are giant war elephants that exist in Tolkien’s world. They are often used by the Haradrim, men from the south of Middle-earth. Some of these Haradrim served Sauron, while others served the Blue Wizard… And, it turns out The Rings of Power‘s Dark Wizard may just be a Blue Wizard in disguise. Very interesting. For now, all we know is that Gandalf will face a Mûmakil in The Rings of Power season three.
We can’t wait to hear Simon Pegg’s Balrog and explore all the rest when The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three releases on November 11.
Originally published on July 24, 2026.