In the first part of our coverage of the new Jim Henson prequel, now live on Netflix, three of the voice cast discuss coming on board the project and the challenges they faced…

Nathalie Emmanuel:  Deet is a Gelfling from the Grottan clan who live underground. Basically throughout the course of the series, she gets a vision from a tree and is sent on a mission to save Thra from a very bad event called the Darkening. She has to come above ground for the first time ever in her life. She’s a very sweet individual who wants to see the best in everyone. She’s naïve, excitable, excited at everything even bad things – she has to learn the world isn’t so good – and in the course of the series she becomes the heroine she didn’t know she was. She’s kind of a badass and didn’t know it.

Hannah John-Kamen:        My character is Naia, and in the course of the series the Gelflings light the fire of rebellion. I join in a bit later – they’re gathering troops for this rebellion. I have a twin brother called Gurjin. Naia is a warrior, a fighter, tough, quite cynical. It was wonderful to see how the puppeteers did it when I voiced it, it gave her so much personality, seeing the expression on her face and seeing who she was. She’s a tough cookie.

Shazad Latif: I play Kylan. He’s a Gelfling but also part of the Spriton. He can play the flute, he’s very sweet. He knows herbs. He’s tasked to find the rebels.

How much were you aware of the original film?

SL:      I remember being young and very scared of it.

NE:     I was terrified

HJK:   It was my childhood. When you go back to these films, Labyrinth, Never Ending Story, they were your childhood. I remember being terrified. When my agents called me and said “We’ve got this project, Dark Crystal…” I went [rapidly] Yes! They said, “We haven’t even discussed the… “ “Yes! I don’t care.” I’m such a fan.

NE:     It’s nostalgic – I watched it as a kid and they successfully terrified me then. When I got the call, my agent was like, Dark Crystal and I said, “Is that the one with the Skeksis and they’re really scary? Cool, let’s read for it.” I read for a couple of parts but I saw the cast list and the legacy of Jim Henson, and it was, hell I want to go in for this.

 

Why bring it back now?

SL:      Maybe puppetry deserves a little resurgence – it’s about time. It doesn’t feel like there’s been any for ages.

NE:     There’s so much focus on animation, and CGI, like The Lion King, where it’s so incredible, the artistry and the technology that’s gone into that. There’s something cool and nostalgic about bringing back a very old art form into the modern world. People are much more retro, and I think they’ve done it in such a beautiful way, particularly the set design,

SL:      It’s truly creative – a proper team effort. The puppeteers should be here as much as us. It’s an incredible thing that they’ve done.

NE:     I found my puppeteer on Instagram, and we’re going to get together – we’re going to call it our Deet Meet! I’m very excited to meet her.

Did you interact with other cast members?

HJK:   No. I went to the studio by myself and it’s amazing – they’ve already done the scenes before and you voice it afterwards. I remember seeing Naia and voicing her but seeing the performance she gave – damn, she’s awesome! What a great actress. It was interesting to do it that way, and already hear the voices and interact in your imagination.

Did it feel like ADR to an extent – you’re matching the performance?

SL:      It’s harder than ADR. You’ve got match the rhythm of the performance.

HJK:   You find things – I remember seeing my puppet Naia sometimes in scenes where two characters were talking. Her mouth was opening and I was like, “Can we give her lines there?” There were a lot of grunts – we gave her more character by adding things in because I could see my puppet was moving. It’s creative like that.

How did you make the connection with your characters?

HJK:   We had a breakdown of the character – she’s strong, she’s a warrior – so I had to be assertive with my voice. I remember asking if there was anything that they wanted me to do for Naia, and they said, no, just your voice in the scene. Seeing her expression and seeing who she is in the scenes gave me the momentum.

 How did you get the energy to do the action scenes?

SL:      The director, Louis, was like, “Do this!”

NE:     In some situations, where Deet was struggling or being physically manhandled, one of the guys would happily come and shake you. On the line, he would shake you to physically change your voice. And sometimes in some way just jumping up and down and getting a certain energy before you record a sequence like that helped. There was always a time limit on how much of that you could do, otherwise the rest of the session [was lost]… Basically you have to use your imagination which is part of the fun side of doing something like that. You can see the actions.

HJK:   You have to stand a bit further back from the microphone sometimes!

Did you watch the sequence beforehand – a sort of rehearse/record idea?

HJK:   Absolutely.

Did you record your lines as you watched it?

NE:     It was line by line.

HJK:   Sometimes you can match it, sometimes you can close your eyes and hear the beat and imagine it. Each actor is different. I just loved watching the action and sometimes improvising. All ideas were open – it was a very creative space.

NE:     I found it easier to do the freer stuff in the action sequences. When the puppet’s speaking and it’s on her face, you have to get those moments – they’re quite technical and quite specific.

Going back to talking about the puppeteers, Becky, who played Deet, she is from Northern Ireland, so her voice and cadence and intonation – how she speaks – is completely different to mine. And the puppet reflects her energy in her voice. It became a really fun challenge to put my voice in there. The action is much freer – you can yell at stuff and do things that are scripted.

HJK:   Get slightly light headed and then have a water.

How did you deal with singing in another language?

HJK:   We’ve done Dothraki on Game of Thrones so to be honest, learning a different language was fun. It was nice to see the moment.

NE:     I’ll shout the house down in the shower but in front of other people, I’m not the most confident person. I was like, okay.

How did this compare with working on other blockbuster projects?

HJK:   When you’re in a set, a human being on a set, it’s quite wonderful and special to be in. This was different because you’re visually watching something. Dark Crystal to me is bigger – it’s my childhood, it’s a cult classic. It’s something special to be part of.

NE:     Like you said about being in the environment – when you’re on set in costume and everyone else is in costume, it does help me click in much quicker. Often for me when I was recording Dark Crystal I was coming straight from set or I was going very early in the morning because I had to go to set, so I was in sweats, and my hair was crazy. It feels quite removed. You go to this dark room and see this.

How do you get into character in those situations?

NE:     I warmed up my voice a lot. Her voice was slightly different to mine, slightly higher pitched. Then you read it, and she’s so cute and happy, and made me want to be happy.

HJK:   Were you nervous on the first day? I was, when I saw Naia. The first line… it took me time to warm up into this and find out who she is. We had no rush. There was no rush to find the character but I remember being really nervous.

NE:     We’d record a couple of episodes and find her and go back and rerecord something because we’d found something nice and bring it through earlier. That was a lovely process and one I wasn’t expecting doing voice work. I don’t have huge experience doing voicework, voice acting – I’d done a radio play once but it’s a very different feeling.

Do you dislike listening to your own voice?

HJK:   Yes, I think that’s why I was nervous. I don’t tend to sit and watch a lot of things I’ve done, but when it comes to your voice, I get quite nervous listening to it back, but when you’re watching back the scenes in this, you really follow the story, and I forgot that that was my voice.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is streaming on Netflix now. Part 2 of this interview will be posted tomorrow