New Colin Morgan Interview from the Sunday London Times 23 February 2020 (Typed out for those who need to translate)
Colin Morgan interview: the star of TV’s Merlin on why theatre is still his greatest love
The Northern Irish actor likes to avoid the obvious. He’s a perfect choice for Caryl Churchill’s disturbing two-hander A Number
Colin Morgan strolls out of rehearsal at the Mountview drama school, south London, with a smile on his face and a woollen cap pulled down on his black curls. He’s 34, but doesn’t look much older than the students rushing to lunch around him. Yet in the packed years since he left college — to take a leading role at the Young Vic — he has established himself as one of the best and most original actors around.
Whether on stage in acclaimed productions of Brian Friel’s Translations at the National and Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at the Old Vic, or on television in The Fall and Humans, he has a knack for finding a different aspect to a character, refocusing them in often revelatory lights. “I suppose I am interested in characters who are misfits,” he says with a grin, in his rolling Northern Irish accent. “Characters who may on the surface appear to be part of society, but actually internally, in their world, don’t feel like they are.”
He is starring opposite Roger Allam at the Bridge Theatre in Caryl Churchill’s elusive, disturbing A Number, about a father and his cloned sons. It’s a characteristically bold choice for someone whose instinct has always been to avoid the obvious. “The road I like to walk down is the one where you can’t see round the corners,” he says.
Given that, it’s a fascinating irony that Morgan is still best recognised for the role that launched him to fame: the titular Merlin in the BBC TV series, for four years from 2008. A rethinking of the Arthurian legends that put the young wizard at its centre, it started off as a children’s favourite and became something more. “It turned into a main-slot drama on Saturday night, which I hadn’t really anticipated.” He took the part because of his love of a challenge. “All I saw was the opportunity to do something that was on me, on my shoulders,” he says, with that disarmingly gentle smile. “I had only done one bit of filming, for an episode of Doctor Who, before then. It was an amazing experience.”
It did, nevertheless, change his life, making him recognised in ways that were not always easy. “You meet people who have grown up with it. You realise that you have been part of their life. Sometimes it’s hard to take that on board, because each individual has a different experience with something that essentially is not who you are. I must pale in comparison.”
Morgan is engaging company. He isn’t exactly reserved, but he does seem very private, making absolutely no comments about his domestic life, and quite shy. He stays completely away from social media — “I think if I had some platform it would be just part of my need. I have no attachment to technology, it’s not my go-to thing” — which means he is insulated to some extent from the frenzy his appearances provoke among his legions of fans. He hasn’t, for example, read any of the feverish excitement surrounding his brief appearance as a “hot journalist” in an episode of The Crown. “I know what people tell me. Which is bizarre, because it was just a few scenes in one episode of a show I was a fan of. I had that experience and I loved it. What happens afterwards is not in your control. It’s just mad.”
Looking back on the early days, when Merlin took off, he is thoughtful. “You are not really equipped to deal with these things. I was used to going into the theatre each day, doing the show and going home. I still feel like that’s my job. Then you realise that when you do other things, you have to be there for the promotion. That was the big adjustment. I don’t enjoy it.”
There is nothing in Morgan’s background in Armagh, Northern Ireland, to suggest a glittering career as an actor. But from a young age, performing with local drama groups, he knew it was what he wanted to do. “I was just fascinated by everything in school productions, watching things, being fascinated by what was behind the sets. The idea of this mysterious world behind what you could see.
“To this day, I get that childlike curiosity and excitement about being backstage — before you step on stage and everything changes. You are on your own, completely, then in a second you are in the company of hundreds. It’s an amazing transition.” He adds pensively: “I feel more comfortable on stage than I do off. That’s the weird thing.”
Morgan’s talent and determination took him to drama school in Glasgow; in his final year, he met Rufus Norris, then associate director of the Young Vic, who cast him in Vernon God Little. He was off and running in an unbroken line of work that has taken in film — he recently starred opposite Rupert Everett in The Happy Prince — TV and the stage. “I want to do that juggling act my whole life if I can. I never want to be just the one thing.”
Yet theatre holds his heart. “I will never, ever not do theatre,” he says firmly. His pleasure at rehearsing A Number under the direction of Polly Findlay is obvious. “What’s great in the room is that there is a combination of fun and seriousness. I’ve never done a two-hander before. It’s a different ball game — thankfully a good game, this one.” Predictably, it was “the impossibility of it” that attracted him to the part. “I had so many questions.” Normally, he prepares by trying to put himself in the environment of a play: for Translations, he took a trip to Donegal, where the drama is set. “Just to breathe that kind of air up there and bring that back over to London with you.”
For A Number, it’s different. “A lot of time was spent with the script as a catalyst for the imagination.” Churchill herself has been in rehearsals — but, like her plays, she doesn’t provide any easy answers. “You might ask her something specific, and she will literally say it could be that. Or it could be that. She is fantastic and liberating.” He looks cheerful. “You mustn’t put any of your inhibitions in the way. You just have to be incredibly open and disciplined to what’s there.” He might be talking about his entire career.
A Number, Bridge Theatre, London SE1, until March 14
Link here: (Behind Paywall)
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