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His Dark Materials stars Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson have opened up on the biggest challenges they faced when filming the third and final season of the series, as fans get ready to say goodbye to their beloved characters.
For the past three years, the actors have starred as Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry respectively in the series based on the book trilogy of the same name by acclaimed author Philip Pullman.
The release of season 3 marks the end of their journey (at least, unless a Book of Dust TV adaptation is announced in due course), and anyone who’s read the books knows it’s going to be an extremely emotional goodbye indeed.
While speaking to Metro.co.uk at the premiere of the new season, Dafne explained what set the latest episodes apart for her as an actor, having portrayed Lyra from childhood to near-adulthood.
When asked what she found to be the greatest challenge of making the third season, she replied: ‘I think trying to make the relationships more mature, and trying to make subtle changes in Lyra to make her more adult, but still have that kind of adult/child hybrid that I think she has at that age.’
Will and Lyra protect one another as they embark on their adventures (Picture: Bad Wolf/BBC/HBO)
As for Amir, his answer was in reference to what it was like behind the scenes doing gruelling days of filming, rather than how he played the character.
‘Season three was definitely a challenge, because I was 17 filming it, and once you’re 16 plus in the industry you’re on adult hours,’ he explained.
‘So working longer hours was actually quite a challenge, because you’ve got to try and keep your energy from the beginning of the day and keep it at the end of the day.
‘When you’re doing these long 12-hour days, so getting used to that… the solution was coffee, apparently. But getting used to that was hard, but I hope I managed to do it.’
His Dark Materials writer Jack Thorne, whose previous work includes Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Enola Holmes, also spoke to Metro.co.uk about what he found to be the greatest challenge of making season three a reality.
Ruth Wilson returns as the conniving and complex Mrs Coulter (Picture: Bad Wolf/BBC/HBO)
‘All of it,’ he said, before speaking about the third book in the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, and what it was like to adapt it as a screenwriter.
‘You’d expect things to be coming to a tight tied up conclusion, and Philip just went wild. He went absolutely wild, and so doing justice to that wildness is very, very complicated, but glorious fun,’ he said.
His Dark Materials season 3 premieres tonight at 7pm on BBC One and will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
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We’re not ready to say goodbye to this show.
