BAD TO THE BONE
ARIYON BAKARE LURKS IN THE SHADOWS AS HIS DARK MATERIALS RETURNS FOR A SECOND SERIES. BY
IN A show with multiple worlds, adorable creatures and world-class actors, and based on one of the most popular fantasy novels of all time, it’s really saying something that the breakout star of season one was Ariyon Bakare – or as fans know him, the evil Lord Boreal. And now the 49-year-old English actor is set to do it all over again.
His Dark Materials is an undeniably family-friendly show but if there’s one character who can get children hiding behind the sofa, it’s Lord Boreal. A small role in the Philip Pullman novel, which has been greatly expanded for the TV adaptation, Bakare plays him with a detached menace so sinister you have to wonder where he got it from.
‘I thought about his daemon [a snake], which is writhing around inside him because he’s not allowed to let it out in the other world,’ says Bakare. ‘I thought it was almost like having an illness inside you. I’d try to be much more like the snake. Be hypnotic. Be still.
‘Whenever I’m talking to someone I make sure my words are almost strangled out of me. There’s no nice side to Lord Boreal, he’s just bad. He’s one of those characters who revels in his evilness.’
And it’s safe to say he’s up to his old tricks again in series two. Trying to give a plot synopsis of
His Dark Materials is a little like trying to explain quantum physics to a duck so all you need to know is that Lord Boreal has bad plans afoot for the series’ two young leads, Lyra and Will, and there are potential worldending consequences
‘Boreal is a guy who throughout the show has been searching for something – and we never know what that is,’ says Bakare. ‘And this series we realise just what his whole life is about because he thinks if he gets this one thing he can control the world and bring down the magisterium.’ Eep.
While most of the daemons in the show were CGI, Bakare had to contend with a real snake. Not ideal when he has a slight phobia of them.
‘This season they were just throwing the snake at me!’ he says. ‘It would literally just crawl all over my body and I was like, OK, I’m used to it now. I don’t think I’d be like that with every snake, just that particular snake. We almost bonded. It felt comfortable in my pocket.’
Speaking of snakes, there are plenty more opportunities to see Lord Boreal scheming once again with the diabolical Mrs Coulter, played with vampish glee by Ruth Wilson. What is she like to work with?
‘She’s so quick and visceral and vicious in her approach to things that you just want to keep up,’ he says.
Perhaps he should give himself more credit. Bakare is an actor who is finally getting his due reward after years of hard graft. How does it feel to finally have people recognising your talent after all this time? ‘You’re making me slightly emotional,’ he chuckles modestly. ‘It has been a long time. I’ve been doing this now for 25 years and I’ve done it at a very high level.
‘All the time I’ve put in, all the struggles, all the times I’ve doubted myself – it makes it all worth it now. It makes me feel like I’m in the right place.’
His Dark Materials start on BBC1 at 8pm this Sunday