Rogue One and Life star Ariyon Bakare is the latest actor to sign up to BBC One’s Philip Pullman adaptation of His Dark Materials.
Deadline reports the popular British actor will star as Lord Boreal in the series alongside Dafne Keen, James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Boreal is an antagonist in the books, who charms Lyra, played by Keen, and houses her from the police before stealing her alethiometer.
BBC One ordered the series, which is written by National Treasure and Wonderwriter Jack Thorne, in 2015. Pullman’s work, which featured three books: Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, is a complex tale of physics, philosophy and theology featuring witches and armored polar bears. It tells the story of the coming of age of two children, Lyra and Will, who wander through a series of parallel universes.
Northern Lights introduces Lyra whose search for a kidnapped friend uncovers a sinister plot involving stolen children and turns into a quest to understand a mysterious phenomenon called Dust. In the second book, The Subtle Knife, she is joined on her journey by Will, a boy who possesses a knife that can cut windows between worlds. As Lyra learns the truth about her parents and her prophesied destiny, the two young people are caught up in a war against celestial powers that ranges across many worlds and leads to a thrilling conclusion in The Amber Spyglass.
Bakare is repped by Curtis Brown in the UK and Gersh and Goodmanagement in the U.S.