Earlier this year, Netflix wrapped on five seasons of The Last Kingdom with an emotional finale that finally saw lead character Uhtred of Bebbanburg reclaim his ancestral home. The series isn’t quite done, but the TV part of it is, and season 5 ended on a note that left pretty much everyone happy.
That includes star Alexander Dreymon, who has played Uhtred for the entire run of the show and made his directing debut in the fifth season. Will he be hard for him to move on to another role after playing Uhtred for so long?
Dreymon talked about that to Man About Town. “The great thing about my character Uhtred is that over the years, and with all of the wonderful writers that we’ve worked with, he goes to every emotional place that you can imagine,” the actor said. “So within that, I’ve had the chance to explore the emotional spectrum that a human being can have. That has been such a gift as I come out of this experience. I feel ready for anything now. It’ll be a challenge to take on a new character but I’ve had so much training in terms of the grip on their emotions.
"I’m never going to look in the mirror again and see Uhtred, but at the same time, I feel like I’ll always be able to hear his voice if I ever need his battle cry. He is a part of me and I wouldn’t have been able to direct like I did if he hadn’t become such an intrinsic part of me. I can switch it on and off so easily, it’s like rolling out of bed now. I feel like I’m supposed to be devastated that I have to say goodbye to him, yet it doesn’t feel like farewell because he is such a symbol of the values which I think, for the most part, I share. He’s always going to be there, I’ll never feel separate from him."
No Seven Kings Must Die release date yet
Dreymon will appear as Uhtred one more time onscreen in the upcoming Netflix movie Seven Kings Must Die, which will cover events from the final few books in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories series. That may strike some as lame, since generally speaking the show adapted roughly two Saxon Stories books per season, and now it has to cram everything left into one movie. But at least we’re getting something.
And frankly, there was only so much longer I was going to be able to suspend my disbelief as Uhtred got older and older but looked basically the same in his 60s as in his 20s. Silver linings and all.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a release date for Seven Kings Must Die yet, but rest assured that we will tell you when we do.
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