The Last Kingdom season 5 will start filming this year

Alexander Dreymon (Uhtred) gives The Last Kingdom fans an update on season 5. Also, Uhtred’s supposed to be getting pretty old. How are they handling that?

The Last Kingdom, Netflix’s adaptation of Bernard Cornewell’s The Saxon Stories, has been picking up steam. The historical drama has been around for four seasons now, and seems to get more viewers every time it comes back. The most recent season was one of the best yet, continuing the adventures of half-Saxon, half-Dane noblemen Uhtred, who helps a succession of rulers create a united England whether he wants to or not.

Even amidst the COVID-19 crisis, we always expected the show to be renewed for a fifth season, and indeed, preproduction began not long ago. Now, while talking with Cornwell as part of a Q&A with RadioTimes, star Alexander Dreymon says that filming will begin very soon.

“We’re going to start shooting towards the end of this year under very strict COVID-19 guidelines, of course,” Dreymon said. “We’re very lucky to be able to work at the moment.” This is terrific news, and hopefully means we’ll be getting season 5 sometimes next year!

Old Man Uhtred

Dreymon and Cornwell were talking to celebrate the impending release of War Lord, the thirteenth and final book in Cornwell’s series. In that book, Uhtred is in his ’70s. The show hasn’t quite gotten there yet, but it is getting to the point where the 37-year-old Dreymon is starting to worry.

“We’re faced with that problem now, getting into season 5 where Uhtred is technically… I think he starts at 54 and ends up at 60 in the books,” Dreymon said. “That’s a problem right now because how do we make it look like Uhtred has aged without it looking comical? We’re working on it.”

Bring on the old man makeup.

Differences between the books and the show

Like other TV adaptations of books, the show has gotten further away from the source material as it’s gone on. Dreymon is a big fan of the books, which has sometimes created issues for him.

“Since we’re doing a television series, we can never stick exactly to the books,” Dreymon said. “There are so many moments in the books that I get genuinely excited about, and then when it gets to shooting, we can’t include those moments for many different reasons, certainly not for lack of will.”

On the other end of things, Cornwell will now “hear Alexander’s voice” when writing the character. (He doesn’t see him, though, because of the aforementioned old man problem.) The author gets “slightly irritated” with people who complain that they’re not exactly the same story as the books. “I have no constraints,” he said. “If I think I need 30,000 Vikings to come hammering against Uhtred, I can just make them up…[Filmmakers] have constraints I don’t have…I think [the show] works enormously well. I have no patience with people who say, ‘It didn’t follow the book exactly.’ You’re getting something extra, more story.”

War Lord will be available on November 27. It’s dedicated to Dreymon and all the cast and crew members who make the show possible.

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