His Dark Materials: James McAvoy filled in as Lord Asriel at the last minute

BBC and HBO’s His Dark Materials show — a long-awaited decent adaptation of the book series by Philip Pullman — premieres this Sunday. The cast is killer, with Logan’s Dafne Keen as protagonist Lyra, Luther star Ruth Wilson as the enigmatic Mrs. Coulter, and Lin-Manuel Miranda has Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby.

Also in the mix is X-Men star James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, Lyra’s guardian and a fierce proponent of truth in a world lorded over by the theocratic Magisterium. (In fact, he may be too fierce a proponent; you can watch to find out more.)

Anyway, although McAvoy looks well-suited for the role, he actually wasn’t the show’s first choice. “It was actually very last minute,” he explained to Radio Times. “I happened to be chatting to the casting director [Kathleen Crawford], who’s a friend of mine, waxing lyrical about how much I love the books, and then they got let down by whoever else was doing it originally…So she called me up and said ‘Do you think you can start on Monday?’ That was on the Friday!”

Ah, so someone else was already lined up to play Asriel but backed out. McAvoy ventured that the production had “possibly been let down by a couple of people last minute,” but wouldn’t name names. Based on absolutely nothing, I’m going to say it was Jude Law…no, Tom Hiddleston…nah, I’ll stick with Jude. Not cool, Jude.

Happily, McAvoy was able to get into the swing of things really quickly. “I know that character inside out, I know the books inside out, so I just hit the ground running,” he said. Man, that’s lucky!

"I was prepared for it without having to prepare for it. I have a vision of that character, and I have a belief or certain goals and beliefs for what that character should achieve, and what should come across…I’m not just a fan – I actually deeply care about the books – so I would hate to watch this and go ‘Oh, that’s not the Lord Asriel I’ve always wanted to see!’ And I’m playing it!"

His Dark Materials is getting solid reviews so far, so it looks like McAvoy’s pre-loaded knowledge came in handy. We’ll be watching this Sunday!

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