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I Also Wanted To Have Fun With It. I Wanted To Have The Scope, Which I Felt Merlin Has, In His Machiavellian Bi-polar Way. He's Not To Be Trusted, Yet He Is Fighting For This Great Power And Is Really A Master, To Some Degree, In Orchestrating Camelot And King Arthur. He's A Strange, Dark Devious Character, And I Just Wanted To Have Fun, And Get Away From The Cloak And Long Beard And Pointy Hat.

-Joseph Fiennes

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I Also Wanted To

Joseph Fiennes

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I Also Wanted To Have Fun With It. I Wanted To Have The Scope, Which I Felt Merlin Has, In His Machiavellian Bi-polar Way. He's Not To Be Trusted, Yet He Is Fighting For This Great Power And Is Really A Master, To Some Degree, In Orchestrating Camelot And King Arthur. He's A Strange, Dark Devious Character, And I Just Wanted To Have Fun, And Get Away From The Cloak And Long Beard And Pointy Hat.

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I've Got A Vendetta To Destroy The Net, To Make Everyone Go To The Library. I Love The Organic Thing Of Pen And Paper, Ink On Canvas. I Love Going Down To The Library, The Feel And Smell Of Books.

I Think Academics Are Infuriating. For Every Expert On Shakespeare There Is Another One To Cancel His Theory Out. It Drives You Up The Wall. I Think The Greatest Form Of Finding Out The Truth Is Through Fantasy.

Finding The One

Maybe We Need More Dialogue In Terms Of Our Faith, In Terms Of Those Who Are Believers, Or Even Nonbelievers, About That Aspect, And What That Might Mean If You Were Interpreting. You Don't Have To Believe It; Maybe You Could Draw A Metaphor From It.

I Like The Fact That We're Stripping The Icons Away. They're The Wikileaks For The Age That We're Revealing, With The Transparency Of The Characters. We're Unearthing The Truth Beyond Or Underneath The Myth. I Love That Aspect.

I'm A Huge Admirer Of Pope Francis And Everything He Stands For. I Think He's An Incredibly Connected Spiritual And Authentic Being.

'how Do You Balance The Creative With The Biblical?' One Could Pick Up The Scripture And Read It To Oneself And You Would Be Communing Directly With That Information. As Soon As You Go Into Film, As Soon As There's A Camera, And There's An Angle, And There's Lighting, And There's Editing, You're Into The Adaptation.

I Don't Know What My Limitations Are Until I Reach Them. I Look For The Challenge.

I've Always Believed That You Shouldn't Want To Mend A Broken Heart, Because That's Someone You Don't Want To Forget. Scars Can Be Good.

There Are Always Going To Be Times When It Doesn't Flow As Much As You Were Hoping. So Of Course I'm Going To Fail. And When I Do Fail I Hope I Fail Better And Better, Again And Again. I Am Happy To Fail.

Again And Again

I Read As Much As I Could, But Really Just Spoke To Chris Chibnall And Asked All The Pertinent Questions. That Made Me Feel Like We Weren't Going To Do An Off-the-peg Camelot, Which Has Been Touched Upon In Many Films And Tv Series Before. I Really Just Picked His Brain And, In Doing So, I Got Fired Up By Tackling Merlin In A Fresher Angle.

Pertinent Questions

I Wanted To Say, "hey, Pope Francis," But I Cried Like A Baby. I Was Reduced To A Very Humble Set Of Feelings, Because It Was Not About What Was Said: There's A Presence. That Was A Blessing For Myself And My Family And Everyone There To Be A Part Of That.

There Is A Bit Of Me If I'm Pushed In One Way I Might Bounce Back And Go The Opposite.

I Guess There's Nothing I Don't Like About Merlin, In This Presentation. I Love Everything, Even The Things I Find Despicable And Abhorrent In Merlin. They're Actually A Joy To Ride On The Tailcoats Of.

I Think Everything I Do Is My Early Work. I Can't Wait To Get On To The Later Stuff.

I Think Religion Might Throw Up A Kind Of Resistance, But I Think If One Talks About Conditioning We Can All Kind Of Understand That.

I Love Life. I'm Fascinated By Human Behavior Because That Feeds Back Into My Work.

Youth Is A Predominant Factor. We Are Seeing A Young King Arthur, And Thereby A Young-ish - As I'm Into My 40s - Merlin. It Was About How To Tackle It, From That Point View.

The Great Thing About Films Is That You Have Access To This Whole World Of Experts Who Teach You The Skills Your Character's Supposed To Have.

I Can Only Put Myself In The Process And Try To Learn Through The Process. Sometimes It Will Go Well And Sometimes It Won't.

It Takes Years To Establish Yourself, And Then You Have One Big Film And Everyone Calls You An Overnight Success. You Think, 'christ, I've Been Sweating And Crying For Seven Years.'.

I Think All Experience Is, In Some Way, Shape Or Form, Filtered Down To Help You, In Your Present Moment. With Shakespeare, You're Trying To Act With A Fairly Archaic Language, Although In Certain Aspects, It's Deeply Modern.

I Also Wanted To Have Fun With It. I Wanted To Have The Scope, Which I Felt Merlin Has, In His Machiavellian Bi-polar Way. He's Not To Be Trusted, Yet He Is Fighting For This Great Power And Is Really A Master, To Some Degree, In Orchestrating Camelot And King Arthur. He's A Strange, Dark Devious Character, And I Just Wanted To Have Fun, And Get Away From The Cloak And Long Beard And Pointy Hat.

He [merlin] Is Slightly From Another World And Place, So It [challenge In Bringing The Role To Life] Is About Having Fun And Presenting It In A New Way. He's More Of A Politician, And Slightly Machiavellian, But There's Also A Lovely Relationship Going On Between Merlin And Arthur. There's So Much To Be Had, Really.

Conditioning Can Be Not A Big Heavy Thing. (for Instance:) I've Got A Brand New Pair Of Shoes, By Mistake You Step On It And You Make Them Muddy And Dirty, I'm Conditioned To Go "hey, What Are You Doing?" That's My Conditioning, I Have A Response. So, Maybe We Have To Learn To Find The Pause Before We React, Because Reaction Is Our Conditioning.

So Getting That Balance Between What Is Honoring Scripture And The Word And Also Acknowledging The Fact That By The Virtue Of Putting It On Film There's Going To Be A Variation And Adaptation, I Mean, It's A Fine Dance And A Balance. Our Producers And Directors Have Worked So Hard To Get That Right And I'm Really Proud. I Think It's A Pretty Good Job.

Pretty Much All Films I've Seen That Depict The Life Of Christ End With The Crucifixion, Almost Like The Filmmakers Don't Know What To Do After.

He Challenge Is Finding The Modern Conduit For The Audience, Having Fun And Really Looking At The Duality Of This Particular Character, That Is Both Devil And Angel, And On The Cusp Of Losing Control Of The Pagan Background, To This Newfangled Religion Called Christianity. There's A Great Backdrop There, And Just A Whole Dark Side With The Magic.

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You Know What? Joy Is The Only Guide. I'm Going To Have Fun Regardless.

From The Age Of About Five To Twelve I Was Very Bad, A Hideous Little Terror Who Beat People Up. I Was A Member Of A Rough Gang - We Went Around And Terrorised All The Pupils In School.

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Hollywood Films

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Falling In Love

When I Was Offered The Part In Shakespeare In Love A Voice In My Head Said 'not Another Tights Role!

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