His Dark Materials stars reveal “pressure” of getting final scenes right
Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson spoke exclusively to RadioTimes.com during production on the final season.
This Sunday sees His Dark Materials return for its third and final season on BBC One – with all eight episodes also landing on BBC iPlayer as a boxset.
Despite a couple of minor alterations here and there, the series has largely stayed very faithful to Philip Pullman's beloved book trilogy of the same name, and that looks set to be the case once again in the final season.
Fans of the books will know that means the show includes a particularly memorable moment involving Lyra and Will towards the end of the series, and back during filming stars Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson spoke to RadioTimes.com ahead of shooting those key scenes.
"I personally don’t feel that stressed out by it, because I think we’re so used to working together, and so comfortable with each other acting," explained Keen. "It feels like that’s the bit that will come the most, I guess, natural. It’s the easiest bit. It’s less crazy.
"We’re not in the Land of the Dead with Harpies doing insane things. It’s just us and the crew somewhere in the sunshine, having intense scenes!"
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"I agree with what Dafne says," added Wilson. "I mean, look, any time you’re doing something that’s based off a book that has a lot of fans – well, for me at least; it might not be the same for Dafne. But for me, at least, I feel like… not just with those scenes, but on a whole, there’s always a tiny bit of pressure to do it right.
"Because, of course, these are people’s favourite characters, and if you’re portraying them, you don’t want to do that badly, because it would ruin someone’s vision of what they wanted, and what they thought. So there’s always that sort of pressure."
Keen agreed: "The book [has] such a massive fanbase. There’s always that pressure. And there is always going to be someone who doesn’t like what you’ve done with it, always, no matter what you do. So you just have to try to do your best job. And just stressing out about it is just going to make it worse!"
Read more:
- His Dark Materials producer: 'I wish I could have told the story across 9 seasons'
- His Dark Materials season 3 will expand role of James McAvoy's Asriel from book
- His Dark Materials team on ending the series: "It’s sad to say goodbye"
His Dark Materials season 3 will air weekly on BBC One and be available as a full series boxset on BBC iPlayer from Sunday 18th December.
For more, check out our dedicated Fantasy page or our full TV Guide and Streaming Guide.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
