It’s been two long years since HBO’s His Dark Materials season two premiered and, finally, the network has confirmed season three will debut on December 5, 2022. Stars from the series – James McAvoy, Amir Wilson, and Dafne Keen (via Zoom) – welcomed fans back to the world of His Dark Materials during a panel at the 2022 New York Comic Con. Executive producers Dan McCulloch and Jane Tranter also participated, and it was Tranter who started things off by providing a brief recap of where season two left off.
“It’s a tricky situation for Lyra. She is in a wooden box with Pan, with Mrs. Coulter sailing across the sea. To where? We don’t yet know. Lord Asriel is summoning angels and appears to be on the start of his great journey – his great quest. Will has just experienced the joy of meeting his dad and the loss of his dad, and now has lost Lyra. So, he’s in a whole heap of trouble. And Mary Malone is going on the journey of a lifetime,” said Tranter.
Executive producer McCulloch confirmed new locations in season three include Asriel’s Republic where he’s been doing his experimentations on dust. Plus, we’ll see the Clouded Mountain, the Land of the Dead, and the Mulefa.
James McAvoy was barely in season two, but fans should count on Lord Asriel being around more in season three. “He does a lot with just a little so hopefully he doesn’t do too much with a little bit more in season three,” said McAvoy, laughing. “It’s an absolute honor to get to play this character whether it’s just a little bit, like in season one, or a smidgen of a bit in season two. But to get to come back in season three and finally bring you the actuality of all the stuff he’s been saying he’s going to do…he’s been like, ‘I’m going to bring war against the heavens. I’m going to take down the Authority. I’m going to bust a hole in the sky. I’m going to bring together the best from every world.’
It was a lot of talk and in season three you get to see him actually do it. And he’s like this locomotive train that is just going to barrel forward, and nothing is going to stop him till the love of his life and the daughter of his life walk back into his life.”
McAvoy added: “And, of course, all the wheels fall off.”
Amir Wilson confirmed that Will is going to be feeling a lot of pressure to fulfill his father’s dying wish. “It drives him throughout the whole series,” said Wilson. “He ends up getting sidetracked, getting pulled to the Land of the Dead. […] He ends up meeting Iorek Byrnison. He ends up seeing Baruch and Balthamos. It’s a crazy journey for him.”
Dafne Keen’s Lyra begins the season kidnapped by her mother, again. “I can say it’s sleepy. There’s not much going on for Lyra. She’s very much asleep and passed out for most of it. So, at least it’s not painful,” explained Keen.
Fans can expect this season to explore the love that Lyra has for Mrs. Coulter. That’s not something we’ve seen in the previous seasons. “I think as she grows up, she starts having those feelings toward her mother which are natural, but which she hasn’t felt because she hasn’t had a mother. And it was really interesting to get to investigate that and to navigate how complicated her relationship is with her parents but especially with Mrs. Coulter.”
James McAvoy admitted he’s not even sure Asriel loves Lyra. “Look, if he loves his daughter, it’s a very different love to the one I recognize with my children. He’s pretended that he’s her uncle for the first 12 years of her life and he has killed her best friend. You’ll see it even more in season three, if you’ve read the third book, he’s really down on her. He says a lot of bad stuff about her.
I don’t know that he doesn’t love her or actively dislikes her. I don’t know about that. He definitely has got bigger things on his plate than fatherhood. I think that he is this self-obsessed, self-righteous guy trying to do what he thinks is right and happy to do anything to get it done. But the journey for him then is about this little girl derailing his entire worldview and his entire opinion of himself. This guy who’s got this massive ego and this little girl. Like, he thinks he’s Spartacus. She’s Spartacus. Do you know what I mean?”
McAvoy described Asriel’s goal as winning the war to emancipate the human soul and spirit from the oppression of tyrannical abuse. Which is a good thing. “But he is just a guy who is willing to justify his means by the grandeur and the righteousness of his ends. And that’s not okay,” said McAvoy.
Amir Wilson said the Will we catch up with in season three has grown up a lot. He’ll be trying to locate Lyra and it’s a mad journey that has him encountering new characters. “He’s got better at using a knife. He has new boots and new clothes. I don’t know where he went shopping in between seasons, but he somehow has new clothes,” joked Wilson.
Creating the Mulefa had been front and center in behind-the-scenes talks for the first two seasons, so by season three they felt right. Tranter said making an angel appear was actually more difficult.
McAvoy explained he would act out the scenes with angels with an actor, whom he admits he didn’t think would actually be in the final cut. He assumed it would be CGI’d. “I think one of the things that these guys have done for us as actors throughout the whole show is no matter how spectacular or how crazy or how weird the thing happening in the scene is, we’ve always got human connection as performers. It gives it it a little bit more – I don’t know – something grounded in reality to be able to convey to the audience. Even if it is something of a spectacle happening in the visual sense.”
Jane Tranter described season three as more grounded and emotional than the previous two seasons. “It unpacks the nature of the human condition stuff that Philip Pullman does so well,” said Tranter.
His Dark Materials Panel Tidbits:
– Lyra will see Roger again in season three.
– We’ll see a budding romance between Will and Lyra…finally.
– Author Philip Pullman loves how James McAvoy has portrayed Lord Asriel.
– Mary Malone (played by Simone Kirby) will spend the season slicing through worlds on a long journey accompanied by a bottle of water, a small sun hat, and a small rucksack.
– Mary will wind up in the world of the Mulefa. They invented a language for Mary to speak with the Mulefa – some with subtitles and some with sign language.
– Lord Asriel has a not hilarious, very manly ponytail.
– Season three will air two new episodes each week of the season. The finale airs December 26, 2022.
– Lin-Manuel Miranda is returning.
– Lyra and Pan’s relationship is tested.
– Dafne Keen took the alethiometer home and Amir Wilson took the knife.
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