But it's a strange thing when people judge you because you're not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in The Dukes of Hazzard? I mean, hello?

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.

But it's a strange thing when people judge you because you're not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in The Dukes of Hazzard? I mean, hello?

There are a couple of films that I've done, where I've had to get on a horse and wear a pair of tights, so that helped. But, nothing could have prepared me for the fun of wielding magic like Merlin does, especially in the perverted mind of Chris Chibnall.

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.

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.

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.