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Season of the Wizard
Merlin's back on the air, and Morgana's back in his hair.
Merlin's back on the air, and Morgana's back in his hair.
We never really used to think of Merlin as any kind of sex-symbol back when Disney's The Sword in the Stone defined his public image, but Colin Morgan has changed all that, delivering a portrait of the magician as a young man. The revisionist mythology of Syfy's imported hit series Merlin begins anew starting Friday at 10 p.m., and bringing back with it the equally magical Morgana, played by Katie McGrath and now fully embracing her bad side. We caught up with both the sorcery simulators for a brief spell to discuss season four.
читать дальшеGeekChicDaily: Colin, when you see yourself in the old-man Merlin makeup, how does that inform your performance?
Colin Morgan: That's always a fun aspect. Sometimes I'll catch myself in the mirror, walking past and go oh my God, is that really me? It's fun; it changes your physicality. The amount of fun you can have with it as well is brilliant.
GCD: Katie, when the show began, were you hoping to yourself that you'd eventually get to play Morgana's turn to evil?
Katie McGrath: Absolutely. From my point of view I've got the best character on the show, though I'm sure everybody says that. From where she starts to where she ends up is so massively poles apart; it keeps it fresh every year. Being familiar with the legend, you know that she's going to become this great and all-powerful evil badass, and for me that's the bit I was waiting for every year. The producers would tell me we're going a bit slow, we're going to slow-burn it, and I'm sitting there going, "No, no, no! I want it to happen now!" So finally now in season four I feel like I've gotten to my true calling of being a proper b**ch. I think people like her more when she's bad. Her scenes are more solid.
GCD: Do the writers speak Irish? There are lots of little easter eggs for people who do, like the Dorocha, Callix, Samhain, etc...
KMG: Well, speaking as an Irish woman, we have an amazing wealth of fairy stories, and such a massive amount of fantasy as part of our heritage. I think the writers just borrow from a lot of Celtic myth, and I'm always very thrilled when it comes in. I'm like, "Yep, I know how to say that." I feel like representing my country.
GCD: Even though the show changes aspects of the story, the legend is well-known and has an end-point. Do you like knowing that? How does that affect how you approach it?
CM: Yeah, the legends are always there, but the writers and the producers of the show have always been very good about changing what they want to do. Because we're in a fantasy setting, we've got a lot of liberty as to what can be shown and how you show it, and that's always fascinating. You never know quite where they're going to go, but in terms of the end point it'll be interesting to see whether it'll be a very true telling of the legend or a very imaginative one.
KMG: They don't actually sell out the legend, they actually hold onto every part of the legend that's important. You still have Lancelot, the sword in the stone and all that - all these things they're going to show to you in a different way. I think that's what makes the show popular: even if you're very familiar with the legend, you can still watch it, enjoy it and be surprised by it. And if you know nothing about, you'll just enjoy it, so I think they've hit on the right mix. Everyone knows the story, so I know the end point, but I don't know how it's going to get there and I don't want to know too much about it.
GCD: Do you have any notion of how long the show will go? Like, will it cover the quest for the Holy Grail, the final battle with Mordred, Arthur throwing Excalibur back in the lake and all that?
CM: I think they might explore those aspects. I mean, we've already explored a lot with Excalibur and Lancelot and the Lady of the Lake in the show already, so there's no reason why they can't. We've never been a traditional telling of the legend, so it'll be as interesting for me as for the audience.
KMG: I think the show will go on for as long as it's popular and the producers want to make it. If there's an audience, I don't see why it wouldn't keep going. The great thing about the Arthurian legend is that there are so many different parts to it. They haven't even explored all the stories of the knights, Gawain, the Holy Grail, Percival and all of those haven't been touched on. We haven't even probably done a third of what is out there. So as long as there's a desire for everybody to do it and a desire from the audience to watch it, I think it'll go on for as long as they can.
GCD: Were you surprised by how well the show has caught on in the U.S.?
CM: It is interesting, because Merlin's a very English kind of thing, so of course it's always amazing when something like that becomes popular elsewhere. But there's fan-bases for Arthurian legend all over the world; the thing that we've never quite seen before is the legend sent in a fantasy-focused genre, which opens up whole new doors. The fantasy genre seems to be really in at the moment and our show has slotted very well into that. The fan support in the U.S. has been phenomenal - Comic-Con was amazing. And we just play it by ear - we work for eight months a year on this show that just spider-webs all over the world. We're just thankful; we don't know what the key to it all is, but maybe you fans can figure it out.
KMG: I'm very touched by the way it's been taken into the hearts of so many countries. Your brain doesn't dream that big, where you make a little fantasy show in Wales, and then it's in 183 countries. Your mind doesn't go to that. I'm surprised in that I never thought I'd become an actress and I never thought I'd be on a TV show in England, let alone America. But I think the show's success is based on the fact that it is honest, good storytelling. It's good acting, good sets, good costumes. It's something we can all stand behind that's enjoyable, and from that point of view I'm not surprised that it's done so well in America; I'm just extremely pleased.
GCD: Colin, what was it like being on Doctor Who?
CM: That was one of my first acting jobs - I learned a lot from that. I hadn't really seen Doctor Who before - it wasn't really big in Ireland when I was growing up - but I read that sсript and automatically fell in love with it. I just felt very lucky to be involved, and I learned a lot from David Tennant, who's a phenomenal actor.
GCD: When Merlin moved in the U.S. from network TV to cable, did you notice anything different from your perspective, or was it just a distant, far-off thing with no immediate effect?
CM: We didn't really notice - I think we feel really sheltered over here because of the mileage; we never really fully know what goes on. Our focus is on filming the show and doing it, and what happens afterwards, I don't know a lot about. So all that we knew was that it was on NBC, and then it found its rightful home, I think, on Syfy. It seems to have grown in popularity, so it was a good move.
KMG: Ultimately it is a BBC show made for BBC, and that's their first audience because that's where it's shown first. But the difference that we did get when it moved to Syfy was that Syfy really got it as a show. They got what we were trying to do. Merlin isn't a mainstream thing in the States; it's a very English show, very British. They embraced that and it felt like they really understood it. I think it was lost before because nobody knew quite where to put it. But as soon as it was on Syfy, the network was just so supportive of it, and that really helped it find its feet in America.
GCD: When you prepare for characters that are so well-known and have been portrayed so many different ways, how do you do research for that? It would seem to be an overwhelming task.
CM: It is, and I certainly read the Arthurian legend in a lot of its forms, from Mallory and Tennyson to The Once and Future King. What it made me realize was that there's so many tellings and versions of the legend...but we've never quite seen the young Merlin before. And that gave me so much freedom and leeway. It's set in a medieval genre, but there's sort of a contemporary humor to it, so I didn't feel like I had to tie myself down to telling the legend. At the end of the day, I realized that it's my telling; it's my time to do my version of Merlin.
GCD: If you had magic powers, what would you use them for and why?
CM: Probably for teleportation, having spent a lot of time in airports recently. Keeping your shoes on and not having to stand in passport-control lines for four hours would be great.
GCD: Where do you hope to see your character go in future seasons?
CM: Well, I think we've passed Merlin the young boy now. The titles have been changed - John Hurt no longer calls me the young boy, but "the young man." I think that's a good progression - he is becoming a young man, he is maturing and he is stepping towards that future. I'd like to see him start to become that powerful wizard that we know from legend, once he gets out, once his magic is no longer secret.
GCD: If Morgana had five minutes alone with Guinevere, what would she do?
KMG: Slap her. [laughs] They'd probably sit in a room and try on crowns, and based on who looked better in the crown they'd decide who could be queen.
GCD: What are your next projects? Any movies in the works?
CM: I did a film two years ago which has just been released in the UK and Ireland and should be hitting the States sometime around March - it's called Parked. I did it in Ireland with Colm Meaney.
KMG: I just finished a miniseries called Labyrinth, produced by Ridley Scott. It had John Hurt in it as well, but I still haven't met him! The TV show has two parts to it - he's in the modern parts, I'm in the medieval parts, and we missed each other by a day. I finished that up on Tuesday. I also did Madonna's film W.E., which comes out in January. She's actually really good as a director - she has an amazing sense of detail. She's a real actor's director who really likes to talk about the range and the performance. Wallis Simpson as a character is really close to her heart, so she knew everything, as you'd imagine Madonna would about something she was passionate about. Then season 5 of Merlin starts shooting in March, so it's been all go.
GCD: So you've been doing a lot of period roles. Do you ever wish you could just play a character in shorts and a T-shirt?
KMG: God yeah! Give me an AK-47 and a pair of jeans, and gimme some aliens to fight. They're doing a Blade Runner prequel; I could do that. Let's just phone up Ridley and say, "Hey...c'mon, love...y'know? I could be a Replicant." I've worked for him once already; I should be already in there!
Season 4 of Merlin airs Fridays on Syfy at 10 p.m., beginning Friday, Jan. 6th