Merlin: Secrets & Magic (2009) s01e05 Episode Script

Trolly Dolly

Secrets & Magic - the series that goes behind the scenes to reveal how Merlin's made.
Coming up - there's a bit of a do as we gatecrash a right royal wedding and witness what it takes to be a troll.
It's very slovenly and hunched over.
Has a funny voice, like that.
GRUFFLY: Revolting! Plus, we see a prosthetics job of monster proportions and find out that not everyone was made up with the make-up.
You see this kind of troll walking down the hallways as you go and get your lunch, and you're thinking "Hope she's not sitting beside me!" All this and more on Merlin: Secrets & Magic.
Today, there's love in the air on the set of BBC Wales drama, Merlin.
Action! And cast and crew have congregated here to film Camelot's royal wedding.
But boy, does the bride have a big secret.
Today, we are filming my wedding to Uther Pendragon.
And it's a very important day for Lady Catrina.
Because if she can get through this wedding, she will become Queen of Camelot, and then be able to take over the kingdom.
Action! But what inspired the creators to come up with this Catrina and troll tale? The great thing about coming back to a second series is because the audience knows the characters, we can explore those characters in more detail now.
And, um, just as we wanted to challenge Arthur with falling in love for the first time, we wanted to see a more tender side to Uther.
Action! We thought, "Why don't we give him a love interest?" And so we were very keen to see a softer side to Uther, a more romantic side.
And then we thought, "Why don't we make his wife a troll?" HE LAUGHS As you do.
We just thought, let's spin it around Uther falling in love with Lady Catrina, this beautiful woman, and we can enjoy the fact that this man of high status, this incredibly powerful, successful king is being completely duped and is falling in love with this hideous He's but a puppet in my hands! .
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farty TROLL BREAKS WIND .
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snotty troll.
The idea of the wicked stepmother, I thought was great.
You know, how she would manipulate the children and how she'd get in and mess things up.
And, actually, it's just about how she gets in and messes me up! I should retire myself.
When we did the read-through for the troll two-parter, Sarah Parish came to the read-through and she was sort of elegant and lovely and reading all the Lady Catrina lines.
And she was like a lady.
And there's a point in the script where she's the troll for the first time.
And she became the troll.
She went down and into it and she did the voice, and the whole room cracked up.
Haaah! Huh! SHE COUGHS GRUFFLY: What's that? Compliments of the King.
SNIFFS Revolting! It was so unexpected, so out of character, so different to Lady Catrina, and at that point, we all knew this was going to be an amazing episode.
Lady Catrina, is it really you? I can hardly believe it myself.
'Being Lady Catrina is lovely.
' You'll spend one day as a horrible, ugly troll, and the next, you're all glammed up.
The in-between troll/Lady Catrina is quite hard to do, because she looks like Lady Catrina but she acts like a troll, so she's very slovenly and hunched over.
Has a funny voice like that.
It was the boy Merlin.
It seems he has magic.
Do not concern yourself.
I resisted him easily enough.
But there's no telling what he'll do next.
He could ruin everything! That cannot be allowed to happen! 'Between her and Adam Godley, 'who plays Jonas, they are the most amazing comic team.
I mean,' Adam was repulsive as the troll sidekick, with his tail and his laugh.
It was wrong, but so right.
Good morning, Mistress.
It is indeed, Jonas.
The King was receptive to your advances? How could he resist such beauty? Huh! The troll is great fun to play.
The full troll, in full prosthetics.
But the prosthetics for Sarah Parish meant that getting into her latest character took a lot longer than usual.
The make-up is amazing.
When I first saw her, I was likekind of talking to her, but just kind of, just amazed by this grotesque make-up that she's got on.
'It takes about two-and-a-half hours to put on in the morning, 'and it's a big, big prosthetic head and a big fat suit,' and big tusks, contact lenses and a horrible old wig.
It was a long, long process.
I mean, I'm always moaning about how long I spend in hair and make-up, because I'm not good at sitting still.
But usually, I'm the first in.
and when I turned up on set, she'd already been there for two hours.
It's a suit for costume, but the head-piece, once she had that on, she couldn't take that off till she was finished.
So you'd see her wandering round in her jeans and flip-flopsbut the troll head.
Eat your lunch, with the troll head on! What's funny about this show is that you start taking things like that for granted.
You just don't even see it anymore.
But she'd wander round location in France and you'd just see all the tourists like This beautiful woman in a pink string vest, blue jeans, flip-flops and a troll head.
'You see this kind of troll walking down the hallways as you're going to get your lunch' and you're sort of thinking, "I hope she's not sitting beside me!" 'It's fantastic, actually, it looks absolutely incredible.
Hopefully,' I would say I'm totally unrecognisable.
If anybody does say they knew it was me, I'll kill them.
'The fun she had, kind of, I think really rubbed off on the rest of the cast, 'because every time you'd be doing a troll scene,' there were smiles on people's faces.
"Oh, we can have "a bit of a giggle on this one.
" She plays it brilliantly.
Even in the read-through, when she didn't have the make-up on, she really had found this incredibly funny character.
This kind of evil, smelly troll Not that she's smelly, I should point out! She smelt lovely.
'When I first read the script of the troll, part one' it's like, I was just laughing, because it was so, so different to any episode in the first series and the second series so far.
It was purely comic and it was out there.
It was bizarre and it was, erm, very broad humour.
I shall respect thee.
I now pronounce you to be husband and wife.
'In programmes like this, you always think that good will outdo bad, 'and it seems, for a long while,' that bad has outdone good, and Lady Catrina is actually going to rule the day, but you'll just have to wait and see! Coming up next time on Merlin: Secrets & Magic - we continue to take a look behind the scenes and find out what married life has in store for Uther.
I did many things that I regret.
Father, I really don't want to know the details.
My first My last My everything 'Yes, there was some troll loving going on,' er, which I think for the episode, has actually been toned down a bit.
So there's a bit of troll love, which is really disgusting, but really funny as well! No, they're hilarious.
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My guiding star My kind of wonderful That's what you are.

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