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MediaBlvd> Thank you for your time, it’s great to talk to you and we’re really looking pasulong to series two airing on SyFy this week.
Colin> Yeah, I’ve got some mga kaibigan in Boston and they were saying they were re-running the first series all araw Sunday, then it’s on this week. It’s a bit crazy!
MediaBlvd> Yeah, it is. Let me start off sa pamamagitan ng asking you, you’ve got the pamagat role in the series. How big of a deal of this is it for your career, and just to be playing Merlin, such an iconic figure in the Arthurian legends.
Colin> Yeah, it’s such a good opportunity for a young actor anyway. But I think when you take such a legendary character as Merlin and are ibingiay such free reign on it; I think a lot of people, they see Merlin as a bit of an old wizened guy with a beard, and the sort of wise advisor to Arthur. But here, we’re seeing a young Merlin which you’ve never really seen before in anything, in being the same age as Arthur and getting himself into all kinds of trouble. It’s good as an actor to get an opportunity to do something in a completely new way and to get to put your own spin on it. So I’ve had a lot of fun doing that. And of course, all of the effects stuff that we get to in the scripts is a bit of a bonus too. I’m living the dream as they say!
MediaBlvd> Is there any jealousy on your part; I know Bradley and some of the others get to play with swords and run around, but you get to talk to the dragon, John Hurt, the dragon. That’s got to be great.
Colin> Yeah, that is pretty cool. What’s great is that on the segundo series, I got to do my scenes with John in the studio. In the first series, we were both separate. He would record his end of it in a studio in London, and I’d do the actual filming of it on my own with a playback of his voice in the studio. But it was great, the fact that in series 2 we got to record a lot of the scenes together. That really made a difference getting that time in there. But I have to be with madami the sort of canological elements of it, so I look a bit stupid when we are actually filming, but get to look cool in production afterwards. Though Bradley gets to look cool immediately, that sort of thing.
MediaBlvd> How hard is that, I assume that with the dragon, they just have a spot on the pader that you have to look at? How do you actually interact with something that isn’t there?
Colin> It’s kind of as you just said, a spot on the wall. There will be a green screen, and I’m kind of standing on a platform shaped like a rock. It’s literally no bigger than a small room. There is a spot on the pader that I can focus on for an eye line to the dragon. Then it’s just a halik imagining what it could be like to talk to a 30 foot dragon with the voice of John Hurt.
MediaBlvd> And with some of the facial features of John Hurt? It seems that when the dragon talks I can almost see John Hurt talking.
Colin> Yeah, they use a face mapping, so they put all of these little beads on his face in the studio. He wears this helmet with a camera in the front of it, and they track all of his facial movements and use those to animate the dragon. It’s funny that you would say that because it is madami or less his face, animated.
MediaBlvd> I’m glad to hear that so I didn’t just insult John Hurt. The ipakita is already in over 100 territories, and I read that it just got sold to China. What is it like knowing that your face is now known throughout the world? You are well known everywhere!
Colin> It’s weird when you put it in a sentence and go, “It’s sold to the world!” It’s kind of hard for us to think about it when we are filming the third series at the minute, and you are very much in kind of a Merlin bubble for the susunod 8 months, just filming. It’s hard to take anything in. It’s only when you finish, at the end of a series and it’s coming on TV that you are seeing the facts of it, and the results of it and peoples reactions. You only begin to take it in. The fact that it’s gone to other countries, we haven’t had a lot of feedback as to what’s going on. We just know that it is happening. So it sort of feels like this thing that is going on that we don’t know about. So the fact of it isn’t felt too much, unless we find ourselves in China or something and we get mobbed on the street. But we’ll see if we get a chance to travel further afield and see what people’s reaction is.
MediaBlvd> That would be excellent. Hopefully you’ll get to come to the states to promote it.
Colin> Yeah, I’d pag-ibig too! I was in Boston last taon in August time, and New York as well. I was surprised at the reaction of people in the streets in the states. There were a few people that recognized me in New York, and it was just nice that people had that reaction to the show. But it was also weird to be so far from tahanan and yet to have people recognize you was a bit of a bizarre experience.
MediaBlvd> How hard is it for you to change accents. Somebody warned me that you had the Irish accent and I knew you were from there. But it is quite different. Is it difficult to do, or is it just segundo nature sa pamamagitan ng now.
Colin> They just get me into the action, then it’s just a matter of practicing each day. I suppose being around most of the cast who are English anyway makes it a bit easier. There are a few characters coming up in the segundo series who are Irish themselves, and I have quite a lot of scenes with them. I find it quite difficult not to slip into the old familiar rhythms. But it’s just a case of warming up each araw and doing a bit of work on it.
MediaBlvd> When you were growing up, did you follow the Arthurian legends at all, or was that something you didn’t really get into?
Colin> I guess I knew as much about the Arthurian legends as anyone, through the Disney Sword in the Stone, and an awareness of Excalibur and Merlin as legend. But as I’ve been involved in the series, I’ve read up the classic tales of La Morte De Arthur and History of the Kings, and basically anything with Merlin in the title, I’ve read. I think you can never inform yourself too much, no matter what you do. And when you are working in that kind of genre, you might as well as explore it and see what it’s like. When you get tahanan at night and read about knights and castles, and the susunod araw you’re in a kastilyo with knights, it’s good to be a part of that world and read about it.
MediaBlvd> I understand that you and Bradley got to do a paghahanap for the real Arthur and Merlin. How was that experience?
Colin> That was great! I think part of the bonus was that we were seeing parts of Wales that we’d never seen before. But it was connected to our job basically. We were visiting sites where Arthur had supposedly had his last battle, and where he fell. We visited Arhtur’s birth place, and the possible hometown of Merlin. It was just amazing, especially certain errors that haven’t really changed in 100 years. When you were standing, looking out at the landscape, you just felt like if Arthur and Merlin had existed, the real ones, were they standing there looking out at the same place we are now. It was just quite an experience. We didn’t get a definitive answer as to if there was a real answer. But it was fun, none the less.
MediaBlvd> You had a part in another very iconic British series, Doctor Who. That, I think, was the first time the US audiences saw you. I remember seeing it, and it was kind of promoted that you were going to be Merlin. How was that to be a part of that ipakita for one episode?
Colin> Amazing. Really great to be a part of that. To get a chance to work on that ipakita and to be a part of it was fantastic, and one of the highlights for me so far. Particularly, the episode I was in was great because it was such a concentrated group of actors clumped together inside of this small capsule for two weeks inside of a dark studio in Cardiff in Wales. It was just a great experience, and one I’ll always remember.
MediaBlvd> You just recently completed The Island, which I believe was your first feature film, is that correct?
Colin> Yes, I just finished up filming before Christmas. I’d started it the nakaraan year, and just finished it there before Christmas. They’re doing some final works on the music and so on. So yeah, we should hopefully see that in the susunod few months.
MediaBlvd> How did you find that experience, doing the feature film compared to the telebisyon series with Merlin?
Colin> The thing about Merlin is that it is a completely different way of working. It’s certainly a lot madami heightened and you have to work within the genre of a magical pantasiya series. Everything is a little bit larger than life, you can’t push things a little bit bigger. But there is also a lot of room for the emotional and the deeper stuff in characters as well, which is explored hugely in serious two, the depth of the emotion of certain characters. You’ve got a lot of range in Merlin. Then working on The Island, it was definitely very naturalistic, very neutral, very kind of small dramatic scenes. So it was hugely contrast. So to switch between the two was quite challenging. But it was great to get the experience of both.
MediaBlvd> I know series 2 has already aired in the UK, but we are just getting ready to start it here. Can you talk a bit about some of the other aspects of the Arthur legend that we are going to see?
Colin> What’s great about the series is that it introduces elements of familiar Arthurian legends. So anybody who is familiar with them will notice elements of “the lady of the lake” will be started in the susunod series. They’ll also see the reappearance of Lancelot, who had appeared in the first. We also see one of the huge things, the beginnings of the Arthur and Guinevere relationship, which those familiar with the legends will know that they are destined to become King and Queen. But at the minute, with Guinevere being a servant girl and Arthur being a young arrogant prince, it’s hard to see that is going to work out. So we are seeing the beginnings of some very big things. Also, we’re seeing Arthur becoming madami king like, and Merlin becoming madami advisor like, as opposed to the kind of bantery friendship that they’ve had, though those common elements are still there. You are seeing madami maturity in our characters coming through. Big things happen to people. Pasts are explored, and the darker pasts of a lot of the characters are brought to the forefront. Merlin has consulted with a few characters that he thought never existed. So there are some huge things happening. Certainly some very intense dark things are to come.
MediaBlvd> How far are you into series three? Are you still in the first episode?
Colin> Well, we film them in three episode blocks. We’re filming episodes 1,2, and 3 at the moment. We’re about 4 weeks into filming, so we’re probably the equivalent of about one and a half episodes filmed in total. It’s all going well so far. It’s also challenges anytime you start a new series, because they always want to make it bigger and better, thus it happens to be harder and longer. But we are enjoying the challenge of it.
MediaBlvd> I also wanted to ask you about the spells and I think we get to hear you, in this series, speak the dragon tongue. Is it hard? Are these real languages, or is it just kind of gobbley-gook that they write that you have to memorize?
Colin> No, they are genuine Old English spells that are properly researched. So each episode, I’ll get a breakdown of each spell. I get the spell, the phonetic pronunciation of it, and also a translation of what it actually means. So they do actually mean things. And I attempt to pronounce them as best I can. Sometimes when you get handed a spell that’s about eight lines long, you kind of freak out about it. But they are always a challenge to learn, but I think the fact that they are genuine Old English adds a good authenticity to it.
MediaBlvd> Absolutely, I had no idea that was true. That’s incredible. How do you and Bradley get along off set, when you aren’t filming? It seems like you have such a great relationship on screen, and I wondered if any of that has translated over into real life at all?
Colin> Well, we’ve got our characters to play and the quirkiness and humor to play. And I think everyone brings elements of themselves to the characters. Yeah, we get along really well, as does everybody on the series. I’d pag-ibig to tell you that there are lots of fights and controversy going on, and everyday is a struggle. But it’s genuine and really nice. Bradley maybe told you that it does become a bit of a family, and everyone gets on really well; which is great when you are something for so long. It’s definitely good vibes all around.
MediaBlvd> Thank you very much time for your time. We are looking very much pasulong to the ipakita premiering here, and it’s been great to talk to you.
Colin> Thank you very much and cheers. I hope you enjoy it all! All the best.
