Merlin’s knights of the round table banter, tease, and discuss Tom Hopper’s arms – Interview

For each of you, what was your favorite scene to do?
EM: My favorite scene personally was myself and Rupert have a really great scene coming up in I think episode … eight? Seven? Where it’s just a really interesting, it’s an episode that basically mainly focuses on the knights. So I’m sure the fans will look out for that, because we’re pretty brilliant in it. And the scene — it’s quite interesting because there’s a lot more conflict between the knights in terms of creating a different dynamic to our relationship. So I enjoyed the scene with Rupert which we had in the forest, which it got quite heated. It was quite fun.
AE: Tom and I did a little bit at the opening of the series, which was quite fun. Rescuing the children from the Doracha, that was good. And then following on again from what Eoin said, I think that, um, if I may call it “the Knight’s episode” has some really nice stuff, some interplay between the four of us, which was a lot of fun to do.
TH: Certainly my favorite has to be saving the kids with Adetomiwa in episode one, that was a lot of fun. And same again, really, I think the knight’s episode, which I believe is episode eight in this series. So I think for all four of us that was a really fun episode because we got to get a piece, a hint of something that was, you know, really on the storyline of the episode. So that was a lot of fun.
RY: Same. That episode is the first time we all go out as a group without Arthur. It was just nice because I  think the characters developed a little bit, as Eoin said, conflict. So that was fun to shoot.

I was wondering what kind of feedback you get from fans about your characters?
TH: I think it varies, really. I mean, three of us are on twitter and you get kind of mixed feedback. I mean obviously there’s some girls or guys that, I guess, have an attraction towards some of us, and there’s some that just want to know every single fact about the show, and to be honest, I think they know more about the show than we do. But generally, yeah, the feedback is good, you know? It seems like we have some very nice, loyal fans.
AE: Yeah, it’s really nice. It seems like the show has a really supportive family, which is awesome. I think a lot of girls are very jealous of Eoin Macken’s hair. I get a lot of questions about what products he uses. Um, Pantene Pro-V, I believe.
EM: Head and Shoulders.
AE: Head and Shoulders, sorry.
RY: He has dandruff.
EM: Yeah, pretty much.
AE: And I get asked as well how I feel standing next to Tom’s arms. And as I always tell people, if they let me get my arms out, you know?
EM: What Adetomiwa is talking about is not euphemistic, he’s actually been taken on literal.  Myself, Rupert and Tom are all on twitter, so we have a really good interaction with the fans. Adetomiwa doesn’t ever use twitter, he’s not very tech-savvy, but we’re trying to teach him. And it’s, I think the fans have actually been great. That’s my feeling, when they come to France to have a chat. And being on twitter and so forth has allowed me to engage with some of them. I’ve actually learned a lot more about the show from them, as Tom said, they do know everything about it. And when we don’t know what’s going on, they remind us.
RY: I think that’s the amazing thing about the fans of the show, is it’s all ages. You do see, there are a lot of children, but the age goes up to eighty. So it’s a family show, and there are loads of different people. So what’s interesting is seeing that dynamic, and seeing people all around the world who love the show and know the show. And it’s, it’s just exciting to be a part of.
EM: It’s genuinely fascinating, because Merlin has such a wide-reaching fanbase, it goes through all demographics, that we do get people all over the world. Which is … yeah. It is great, because you get to see how everyone’s got a different subjective take on it, from all the different countries in the world, and because we all seem to be connecting with it. Yeah. It’s great. Sorry, Rupert Young is trying to distract me.

Can you talk about working with Bradley James and Colin Morgan?
TH: Who do they play?
EM: Are they in this show?
[Laughter]
TH: Yeah, you know, they’re great. I mean, obviously as you can tell, there’s a lot of banter between the boys here, and it’s all a lot of fun. So having us all together, working with those two, and they’ve sort of just, you know, they’ve really started off what we’ve joined. And it’s been great working with those guys, on their journey of making the show. They’re good people, you know, and very good actors.
EM: Colin and Bradley — that’s actually genuinely great about working on Merlin is that the actors are all of  really high caliber. I mean bring on some great guest stars and so forth, like Nathaniel Parker. But the actors on the show who are the main focus, which would be Colin and Bradley and Katie [McGrath], they are fantastic actors. And Colin and Bradley in particular are both brilliant, and it is always great working for them. And as people, Colin’s Irish, and Irish people are generally great, and Bradley’s British, and that’s cool too. So it’s great working with them.
RY: When you turn up on the show, you can see — I mean, Colin Morgan, and Bradley, both of them, they’re the hardest-working people I’ve met. I know it sounds like we’re sucking up to them, but they genuinely are brilliant, and the show wouldn’t be a success without them. I haven’t met or worked with people who work that hard, and they’re working flat-out for eight months, and so they make us raise our game. So they’re two great people to work with.
AE: I guess our interaction with them, as a group, it’s slightly different. Bradley is, if I may say, he’s one of the lads, and we have a lot of good banter with him. And Colin is, like, one of the warmest, nicest, most generous people you’ll ever meet.

Since you guys are such a diverse group, if you had to assign superlatives to each other, what would they be?
EM: I would call Adetomiwa enigmatic … and superlative. I would call Rupert beard-y.
AE: Tom “Big Guns” Hopper, I think … what would I say? Sound as a pound, you know. Good man to have in your corner.
RY: I’d call Eoin confusing.

Do you guys ever think you’ll get a love interest, or do you think Arthur’s going to continue to get a monopoly on the only girl in Camelot?
EM: I was going to say that, because wondered where all the women were! I think Gwen just kind of got rid of them, personally.
AE: Look, I’m sure you know that the show is influenced by fan feedback. so I mean, if the fans are interested in some sort of love interest, we’ll get them.
EM: There should definitely be more sex scenes.
AE: That was Eoin Macken.
EM: No, that was Rupert Young. He does a great Irish accent, apparently.

Clacked by Julia Hass
on Jan 26, 2012 @ 17:12 EST5EDT