Cult trilogy hits small screen

She has played her own grandmother in Mrs Wilson and a woman who loses a child in The Affair, but after the emotional toll of those two shows, Ruth Wilson was looking for a lighter role and found it in a character described as ‘‘the cesspit of moral filth’’.

‘‘I thought, ‘That’s quite fun to play’,’’ she says of her part as Mrs Coulter ‘‘the mother of all evil’’, in the TV adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

‘‘Those jobs took a lot out of me,’’ says Wilson. ‘‘Mrs Wilson took an awful lot out of me and The Affair took lots because it’s so demanding emotionally.

‘‘I’ve got two very close people in my life who have lost kids and it felt a huge responsibility to serve that form of grief.

‘‘Mrs Wilson was a huge responsibility to serve my family and the emotional demands within the piece were huge.’’

Not surprising then that taking her first steps into the world of fantasy was an easy decision.

His Dark Materials, an HBO/BBC coproduction, is set in an alternate world where parts of people’s souls manifest themselves as external animals called daemons. The series centres on 12-yearold Lyra (Dafne Keen), who discovers a dangerous secret involving her uncle Lord Asriel and parallel universes when her best friend goes missing.

The series also stars James McAvoy as Lord Asriel and Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby.

Wilson says part of the appeal of Mrs Coulter, who is involved in a churchsanctioned child-kidnapping scheme, was, ‘‘I’m drawn to people that I don’t really understand.’’

And to play Mrs Coulter she drew on her experiences growing up with three brothers. I grew up around men. I had to learn to negotiate that,’’ she says.

‘‘My brothers would send me up to my dad to go and ask for things. I knew how to get things done.’’

It’s a talent shared by Mrs Coulter. ‘‘I love how she can command a room of men very easily. She knows how to sort of dominate the male – you know, make them do what she wants.’’

However, it’s the viewing audience that is top of mind and with the global success of Pullman’s books, she knows the TV series will face close scrutiny.

‘‘When you read a book, it’s your own imagination that creates what these characters look like, sound like, feel like, so no one can really ever match up to that,’’ says Wilson.

‘‘We can do our best and we can give you what we hope will be what the fans want and what the book represents. These figures are imprinted in people’s imaginations.’’

One person who is a big fan of the series is Lin-Manuel Miranda, the American composer, rapper, singer and creator of Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights.

Miranda, who plays Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby, says, ‘‘I was obsessed with the books. I read these books as my wife and I started dating. We just read together, which is both romantic and dorky.’’

He describes himself as ‘‘the Han Solo of this franchise’’.

‘‘It makes no sense that he’s in the story except that he is,’’ says Miranda.

‘‘Mine is like a buddy comedy. I am a character who spends a lot of time alone, who kind of picks pockets and scams their way through life. And so my conversations with my daemon, an arctic hare named Hester, are really some of the chattiest in the show because I’m just alone all the time.’’

But comedy aside, His Dark Materials is also a coming-of-age series which points the finger at organised religion and institutions.

‘‘It’s about when institutions use their influence to oppress everyday people,’’ says Miranda. ‘‘So in addition to being about growing up, it’s about freedom.

‘‘I think that can be organised religion, that can be governments . . . but when large institutions use their influence to limit your personal freedoms, that’s not right.

‘‘And it’s about fighting against that. And so I think that it couldn’t be more relevant in this year of our Lord 2019.’’

– Julie Eley, TV Guide

His Dark Materials, 3pm SoHo, 8.30pm SoHo2 and Neon, from Tuesday, November 5.