Ben Barnes compares Shadow and Bone to Harry Potter and His Dark Materials

British actor Ben Barnes has appeared in some big science fiction/fantasy shows, including the Chronicles of Narnia movie series and TV successes like Westworld and The Punisher. He now has a leading role in the upcoming Netflix epic fantasy series Shadow and Bone, a project he compares favorably to the Harry Potter movies, and the BBC/HBO’s new TV offering His Dark Materials.

What does Barnes have to say about his new Shadow and Bone series? He sat down with Digital Spy to discuss his attraction to author Leigh Bardugo’s Russian-themed Grishaverse. He plays the Darkling (Alexsander Morozova), the mysterious, grey-eyed  Grisha leader of the Second Army, a being intimately ties to the destiny of the young Alina Starkova and the entire Kingdom of Ravka.

“I’ve always been a huge fan of fantasy stuff, but it’s set in such a specific universe,” Barnes said. “They call it Tsarpunk. It’s kind of like a Russian-themed industrial revolution era story. So you have, you know, early pistols and early engineering and things like that. But you still have castles and horses and these amazing costumes. And obviously the world is full of magic.”

“I don’t know exactly where it’s going to sit,” Barnes continued, “because the Shadow and Bone stories are a little bit more YA, and the Six of Crows stories are skewed a little older than that. I think it’s going to not be necessarily YA in terms of what it is as a TV show.”

[Credit: HBO} Ben Barnes in Westworld Season 2Barnes believes Shadow and Bone is so unique that it will open up a new frontier in the fantasy universe, just as Harry Potter and His Dark Materials have done. “It’s like a really cool – it’s a really cool steampunk-y universe of magic,” he explained. “And it’s got a lot of – you know, what I loved about… what I love about His Dark Materials and the Harry Potter novels and all those stories are the details.”

"It’s the small things that really excite me about those worlds. And this world has all of that stuff to it as well. The specificity of the world is really exciting to me. You know, it’s, again, a character (the Darkling) with light and shade to him – literally shade…So it was, again, something I felt comfortable that there would be enough to him. I had a template. As I was reading it, I had templates in my head of characters that were interesting to me."

Netflix has yet to announce a release date for Shadow and Bone, but Barnes’ current project, the TV mini-series Gold Digger, premieres on BBC One on Tuesday, November 12.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Watch Game of Thrones for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels