On January 25, 2012, I participated in a conference call with four actors who play Knights of the Round Table on the Syfy British series Merlin. Joining us from London, where they were dressed in tuxes for a fancy Awards Show after talking with us, were Tom Hopper (Sir Percival), Eoin Macken (Sir Gwaine), Rupert Young (Sir Leon), and Adetomiwa Edun (Sir Elyan).
The first and perhaps most obvious question to ask these robust fighting young men in chain mail was what they enjoyed most about their roles. Hopper was the first to answer with: “I guess we do quite a lot of physical stuff, which is a lot of fun. We do a lot of fighting and look cool with a sword, which is always a lot of fun.” Edun concurred and added, “I'm right behind Tom when he says it's a lot of fun kind of getting stuck in with the action because we've got a couple of good ones in mix in this season.” And after Macken also concurred, Young showed there’s always a clown in the bunch by asking, “What does "concur" mean?”
Eoin Macken & Rupert Young Talk Bonds Between Knights
My interest usually revolves around the various relationships and friendships in a series. As the feisty bad boy of the group, Sir Gwaine seemed to be friends with both Arthur and Merlin and yet both friendships were different. I asked Eoin Macken how Gwaine would describe his friendships with each of them.
“I think that the initial friendship with Arthur was actually more of a competitive relationship that became a friendship through respect because initially, Gwaine as a character didn't have any time for Arthur because he was royalty,” Macken responded. “And Merlin was more respectful towards him and they became friends much quicker.” But he also recognized that the relationships changed over time. He said that as this season developed, Arthur and Gwaine became much stronger friends, by virtue of fighting battles together side by side. In fact, Arthur became stronger friends with all his knights for the same reason. “So Merlin and Gwaine haven't been as strong friend-wise because Gwaine doesn't know what actually Merlin does in terms of his magic, so Arthur and Gwaine would fight alongside each other, as alongside Percival and Elyan. And so we have a stronger bond that way.”
On the other hand, Sir Leon has been in Pendragon service for a long time, and for most of that, he would have seen Merlin merely as Arthur’s servant. Yet, when Morgana was on the throne, they were all out in the woods being subversive and by virtue of that outlaw type of life, so to speak, they were all a bit more equal. I wondered if Sir Leon’s view of Merlin had changed at all and whether they might have become sort of friends.
“I think that with the relationship with Merlin is that because he's been around and he's always at Arthur's side -- as has Leon, in many ways -- they have grown to like each other,” Rupert Young answered. “However, there's always that status. So I'm always going to be a slightly higher status than Merlin. So I think my character and all the knights -- we have a joke with him, we have a laugh with Merlin, but there's always a line, in the same way -- to a point -- but not as much -- as Arthur and Merlin. There's that respect there, but Merlin always knows his place and we've always got to remember that he'll be our friend, but when he needs to be, he is still a servant.”
Adetomiwa Edun on the Series Color-Blindness
From the beginning with the casting of Angel Coulby this series has been wonderfully color-blind, and I wondered whether there were any discussions about playing a character color-blind or whether they were going for a global feel with the knights by making a more international makeup of cast, thinking that blacks came to England roughly at the same time as they came to the US.
Edun pointed out my ignorance of British history by saying that he thought there were Africans in the UK as far back as the Roman invasion of Britain. “As for sort of being in this cast, I don't think there was any intention -- I don't think race basically was part of the casting. I was brought in to join the cast as Gwaine's brother, but beyond that, I don't think the series is worried about making any kind of particular statement in that respect. But I guess you could ask the producers.”
Tom Hopper Explains Beefcake Photo Shoot
As part of our preparation for the conference call, FremantleMedia gave us photos to publish with our articles. A set of them were interesting sexy beefcake-like poses. Lovely to look at but unexpected. So I asked Tom Hopper to talk a bit about that photo shoot.
Hopper identified the shoot as for The Gay Times. “We did a shoot for a magazine earlier this year for the promotion of the opening of the series, and we were asked by this magazine to dress in -- well, not a lot -- with swords and shields and stuff, but also making it kind of a fashion thing as well. So yes, we did it. I think that's quite a popular magazine in the UK, so the producers thought it would be a good idea for us to do that.”
He then asked, “Is that a popular thing over there [USA]?” and someone quipped, “It's going to be now.”
In part 2, the Knights will talk about their auditions, watching Merlin, character development, and favorite scenes.
See them in all their swash-buckling glory on Merlin, Friday nights on Syfy at 10 pm ET/PT.
Crystal Taylor - I'm a writer of TV one-hour scripts, screenplays, novels, short stories, articles, and poetry. I'm most proud of a story (episode outline) ...
