Bradley/Colin Interview
WALKING down a narrow track deep in the Forest of Dean, the cloudless, blue sky slowly becomes obscured as the trees grow ever denser. A light mist weaves its way around the ancient trunks.
It seems only fitting to find two characters of legend, Merlin and Morgana, deep in conversation at the end of the path, their silhouettes highlighted by a stream of golden sunlight breaking through the trees.
Then a cry of 'Cut' can be heard and, in an instant, the spell is broken as crew members set about preparing the next scene of the successful TV series, Merlin.
Now in its third series, the series is based on Arthur and Merlin in their formative years, with Merlin a novice wizard and Arthur a headstrong prince in a Camelot where magic is outlawed.
"There's a danger with fantasy that people take the light-hearted approach but I think you can put a lot of heart and emotion into it," says Colin Morgan, who plays Merlin, during a break in filming.
"I think it's important to put a 100 per cent into everything and find new ways to make it believable," adds the 24-year-old, who hails from Northern Ireland.
As a wizard in training, Merlin spends a lot of time casting spells but Morgan says it's only now he's getting to grips with the complicated pronunciation.
"When we first started out it was a bit daunting," he says. "It's great because they're in genuine old English so whenever I get the gobbledegook," he says, referring to the script, "I find out the meaning, and then the phonetic pronunciation. So when I say the spells, I genuinely know what they mean."
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