Russell Tovey - Actor Russell Tovey was playing the boy in Henry V at the National Theatre when he found a script for His Dark Materials in his pigeonhole. Nicholas Hytner wanted him to play Lyra’s Oxford street-urchin friend Roger. Russell already knew the books and leapt at the chance. He describes Roger as someone who is genuine, sensitive and good for a laugh. His is a part that’s much larger in the plays than in the book. It’s Lyra’s quest to find Roger which drives the narrative of the plays. For Russell the greatest challenges have been learning how to act with daemons, his own and those of the other actors, and how to give his puppet life and work with it as a part of the character. But he had a head start. When he was a child he had a glove puppet he took everywhere with him. As an actor he finds his most traumatic scene is that in which he is separated from his daemon. He confesses he still gets a surge of adrenaline every time it happens. |  | |
