“His Dark Materials” has added three key players to its season 2 cast.
Legendary British actor Terence Stamp is joining the cast of the HBO series for its second outing, alongside “Cleaning Up” star Jade Anouka and “Peaky Blinders” alumna Simone Kirby. The casting announcement comes just ahead of the show’s Comic Con panel, which is taking place later this afternoon.
Based on “The Subtle Knife” (the second novel in Philip Pullman’s trilogy), season 2 will find Lyra (Dafne Keen) in a strange and mysterious abandoned city called Cittàgazze, where she meets Will, the boy first seen in the human world in season one, who is also running from a troubled past.
Stamp will play the role of Giacomo Paradisi, the bearer of the Subtle Knife who lives in the Tower of the Angels in Cittàgazze. Anouka will play Ruta Skadi, a witch Queen who joins forces with Serafina Pekkala against the Magisterium. And finally Kirby has been cast as Dr Mary Malone, who heads up the Dark Matter Research Team at an Oxford university in our world.
The series also star Ruth Wilson as the icy Mrs. Coulter, James McAvoy as Lord Asriel, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby. Andrew Scott, of “Fleabag” fame, was previously announced as joining season 2 in the role of Colonel John Parry, Will’s father.
Popular on Variety
This marks Stamp’s first TV appearance since “Smallville,” which ended in 2011. He will next appear on the big screen in Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho.”
The original “His Dark Materials” trilogy is comprised of “The Golden Compass” (also known as “Northern Lights”), “The Subtle Knife” and “The Amber Spyglass.” Pullman has also written a prequel, “La Belle Sauvage,” and has embarked on a new book that picks up where the trilogy left off.
This series adaptation is produced by Bad Wolf with New Line Productions for the BBC and HBO, in association with BBC Studios Distribution and Anton Capital Entertainment.
