S UNDAY
ANE TRANTER, THE CHAMPION OF HBO
and BBC’s His Dark Materials, admits
how “perpetually anxious” she is
about what everyone thinks. As the
lead executive producer who spent
years getting this adaptation of Philip
Pullman’s book trilogy made, the
pressure is understandable.
In December 2007, director Chris
Weitz adapted The Golden Compass, the
first book in Pullman’s Dark Materials
trilogy, as a feature film that didn’t con-
nect with critics or audiences. There’s
also been a British radio play version
and a staged theater production. But now Tranter is attempting to
reintroduce the multiverse-spanning saga to TV audiences as a
serialized adventure. And there’s a lot of ground to cover.
Lyra (14-year-old Logan star Dafne Keen) lives in a world parallel
to our own where clans of witches own the sky, armored polar bears
dwell in the arctic north, and human souls exist outside their bodies
in the form of talking animals known as daemons. This streetwise
and rebellious orphan (along with her daemon, Pan, voiced by Rock-
etman’s Kit Connor) leaves the walls of her Jordan College home and
begins a global quest to find her missing friend, the latest victim in a
string of kidnappings plaguing her city. “The most amazing thing
about Lyra is that she is a modern heroine,” says Keen, already
acutely aware of harmful tropes for female roles. “In films and shows,
it’s usually the sexual power they have. [Lyra’s] power is her person-
ality and her strength and her determination and her braveness. It’s
just all her. It has nothing to do with her gender.”
“In our first season, every episode takes place with Lyra in a dif-
ferent location as she goes on her journey further and further
north,” Tranter says of the series, which completes its world with a
menagerie of fantastical characters, creatures, and concepts.
There’s Lyra’s explorer uncle Lord Asriel (IT Chapter Two’s James
McAvoy), whom she saves from an assassination plot in the pre-
miere; the Magisterium, this world’s reigning authoritarian religious
institution; Mrs. Coulter (Ruth
Wilson), a mesmerizing and
nefarious figure who enters
Lyra’s life as these events tran-
spire; Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel
Miranda), the Texan aeronaut
aiding Lyra’s mission; and the
existence of Dust, a mysterious
particle that holds vast secrets to
their universe.
All this is to say Tranter under-
stands why the movie adaptation
never took off. “Philip’s books are
as deep as they are wide,” she
explains. “They exist on many
levels and they have a terrific
breadth of location stories. That’s
very hard for a film to capture.”
It helps having so much love
for Pullman’s work between
the cast and crew. Miranda—
perpetually busy with any
number of projects, including
next summer’s In the Heights
movie—considers this show his
“vacation.” McAvoy, “a humon-
gous fan” of the books, says he
feels “more protective over
Asriel than any other role” he’s
played. Wilson didn’t come
into this world knowing her
“alethiometer” from her “spy-
fly,” but she wanted to “create
something new” with her next
role, and “there’s so much mys-
tery” to Mrs. Coulter. “You’re
always confused by what her
motives are and who she really
is,” she says.
It’s this passion, channeled by
Tranter, that ultimately sold
HBO and the BBC in 2018 on
granting an initial 16-episode
order: eight for season 1 to tackle
The Golden Compass and eight
for season 2 (already in produc-
tion) for the parallel-world plots
of The Subtle Knife, the second
book. The idea is to produce a
third season for the trilogy’s cap-
per, The Amber Spyglass, next.
The serialized format also
grants leeway to expand on Pull-
man’s saga. Part of that has to do
with Keen. Given her age, the
teen star can work only so much
per day. So, the producers have
found other threads to follow.
For one, McAvoy teases he
“might have a minute of extra
material that comes from The
Book of Dust,” Pullman’s new
book trilogy that begins before
the events in The Golden Com-
pass. For another, Wilson worked
with writer Jack Thorne to dive
deeper into Mrs. Coulter. “Why
was she able to separate from her
daemon? How does she do that?
What does she really believe in?
What does she really want?” Wil-
son asks. “Philip Pullman has
given us license to dig more into
her and to examine why she is
who she is and why she does the
awful things she does.”
At a time when viewers are on
the hunt for the next Game of
Thrones, Tranter admits His
Dark Materials owes a lot to the
HBO ratings juggernaut. It set
the tone for an age of “heavily
realized serialized pieces of tele-
vision,” and now she’s able to
have the budget she needs to
give this universe life on screen.
That includes its inhabitants,
like Iorek Byrnison (voiced by
Joe Tandberg), one of those
giant polar bears Lyra meets
along her travels. “Originally the
biggest challenge for me on set
was working with Iorek, but then
I got used to that,” Keen recalls.
“Those scenes are quite hard
because you’re not talking to any-
one. It’s an object you have to
look at. It’s weird, it’s strange, but
it’s really fun to do.”
At the same time, Tranter’s
show is very different from
Thrones. “I can say that I am
very, very, very glad I’m making
His Dark Materials and not an
adult, X-rated, male-orientated
piece of fantasy,” she says.
“Philip Pullman always said His
Dark Materials is a series of
adult novels that children could
and should read. And we tried to
place our television adaptation
in exactly that place.” �
↑ Bear necessities: Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Joe Tandberg)
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54 OCTOBER 2019 EW●COM
HBO
