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Julian Murphy (‘Merlin’) interview – Part 2

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A fourth series of BBC One’s fantasy drama Merlin is currently filming and is set to air later this year.

> Read our exclusive interview with Colin Morgan, who plays Merlin in the show.

> Buy the Series 3 boxset on Amazon.

Watch the Series 3 trailer…

CultBox caught up with Merlin‘s producer Julian Murphy and asked him questions sent in to us by fans on Twitter…

> Read the first half of our interview with Julian.

@IanMcArdell asks: Given the events of last series, will we be seeing a reduced role for Anthony Head now?

“Well, he’s definitely still there! I’m not going to comment, there’s a very distinctive change in Uther. The Uther at the end of Series 3 was a man who’d been through a lot.”

@Ysatis_S asks: Why have you chosen to film Series 4 on 35mm film?

“There were lots of reason really; the biggest reason was the CGI. We use a lot of CGI and it gets more complicated each series. We’d just reached a point where shooting on Super 16 was making things difficult. We felt we had to make a change to make the effects work on HD. It’s always been our intention for the show to have a storybook look, we realised film would work better. We really had no choice for the CGI we’re now doing.”

@CamelotCast asks: How does people taking pictures on location in Pierrefonds affect the show?

“We’ve started to get that now, yes – last year and now this year it’s even worse. Only in France does it happen because people know where we are and where our location is, but now when we turn up the location is literally full of fans. It’s nice, it’s not a problem. It’s quite rare in Wales because nobody really knows where we are. They don’t really know where the studio is – and I’m not about to tell anyone! We’re often in very remote places so it rarely happens in Wales.

“I don’t think we have quite the relentless interrogation that Doctor Who has, but it’s started to worry us a little bit. Fans dedicate a lot of time and energy with Doctor Who to finding out what’s going on, but we now consciously avoid filming key scenes in certain areas at certain times of day.”

@geekymom13 asks: Will there be a Merlin panel at Comic-Con this year?

“Yes, there will be. They’re fun to do, we’ll hopefully get some more cast over and do a slightly bigger one this time.”

@Justkahlan asks: Can we hope to have a Series 5? We really like the show here in France!

“We do have a general idea of what would happen in Series 5. We’ve always known a long while ahead where we wanted to go. I mean, things can change, but we do talk a lot about Series 5.

“I don’t think we’re likely to lose anyone in the cast that’s key to our developing story. We know where we’re headed and I don’t think anything particularly will stand in the way. Sometimes we have to modify stories when certain actors aren’t available at the right time, but we’ve never had to change things really. I hope that doesn’t ever happen and I don’t envisage that it will.”

@SharonSant asks: Could there be a spin-off series?

“We’ve talked a little bit about possible spin-offs. It’s very early days, but there are thoughts and ideas. I think it’d be very interesting to explore. Something we’ve discussed, which would have to happen after the series had come to an end, is an animated series.”

> Read the first half of our interview with Julian.

> Follow us on Twitter to get the latest Merlin news first.