His Dark Materials’ Amir Wilson: 'Season 3 is bigger journey than ever before'
Exclusive: The Will Parry actor says we pick up with his character “at his lowest".
The second season of Philip Pullman adaptation His Dark Materials aired in late 2020, with fans forced to wait a couple of years before they could see how the parallel universe-spanning story would wrap up in 2022.
Now, there’s just a few months before the fantasy drama concludes this autumn – and series star Amir Wilson has dropped some new hints about what to expect, suggesting that the scale of the show will get even bigger while his character Will Parry is put through the emotional wringer.
“We left [Will] at his lowest point,” Wilson told RadioTimes.com at the Radio Times Covers Party, where he was presented with a His Dark Materials cover alongside executive producer Jane Tranter.
“He just lost Lyra. I guess without spoiling anything Will's journey this season [is] to find Lyra and to complete the journey that his dad wanted him to go on.”
Intriguingly, it also sounds like that “journey” will include a greater scale for His Dark Materials season 3, despite pandemic protocols during the shoot.
When RadioTimes.com exclusively caught up with Wilson on the His Dark Materials set last summer, he shed a little more light on what this expansion might look like, noting that there was a large increase in sets and locations written into the upcoming episodes.
“We go on a bigger journey than we have been before,” he told us. “Most of season 2 [was] based just in Cittàgazze.
“This season, on a whole, I mean, not even story-wise, but in terms of elements when we’re filming – it’s such a different environment. We’re on location more, and we get to experience different types of sets and different locations.”
And of course, the list of locations isn’t the only thing that’s grown. With a long break in filming between seasons 2 and 3, both Wilson and co-star Dafne Keen have grown up a lot in the interim, which changed the young actors’ experience filming the series as well as the themes it was able to explore.
“I think also since season 2, Will and Lyra have grown,” Wilson told us, noting that Keen was only 11 for her first audition before season 1 (she turned 17 in January 2022). “Obviously me and Dafne have grown.
“And those elements – now we’re older; now we’re 16-plus, we’re on adult hours. So they can work us as much as they like.”
“I think it’s great,” he added. “[Season 3] has more for people to see. There’s more elements to watch, and for the audience to see. There’s a lot to look forward to.”
Altogether, it sounds like His Dark Materials season 3 will be worth the slightly longer wait. Even if for some fans, that might make holding on to see what happens all the more challenging...
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See more photos from the Radio Times Covers Party 2022 in the new issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now. Subscribe now to get each issue delivered to your door, and for more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times podcast with Jane Garvey.
His Dark Materials season 3 comes to BBC One and HBO Max this autumn, and you can catch up on seasons 1 and 2 on BBC iPlayer. For more, check out our dedicated Fantasy page or our full TV Guide.
