When the character of Morgana took a much darker turn for Series 3 of Merlin, Katie McGrath, the actress who plays her, was concerned about fan reaction. Namely — that they wouldn’t like her anymore. Luckily for her, she says, she’s not recognized much. “I haven’t had anybody throw vegetables at me,” she laughed. “I haven’t made any children cry or tell me I tried to kill Merlin.”
Sadly, due to a technical glitch, there’s no audio so you can hear the relief yourself, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say that Katie’s feeling cheerful about her role, as well as happy to have a much-deserved vacation after filming a movie at the same time she was balancing filming the third series, saying, it’s nice to have a break from “all Merlin, all the time.” One thing she doesn’t miss? The hair and makeup process.
“If you see me in real life, I look nothing like Morgana,” she said. “It’s a real transformation I go through.” A transformation she was more than happy to pass on to co-star Angel Coulby, who, in a flash to the future, acted out Guinevere’s coronation as queen of Camelot. “I got to sit in the trailer with her and laugh,” she recalled. “Like, now you don’t get to just get yourself done and leave — now you know what I go through.” But she’s certainly not complaining about her costumes, her favorite of which she says is her white dress, which she says was made from antique fabric from the 1920s.
No amount of sumptuous dresses (all of which I highly covet and would steal in a heartbeat) can hide that Morgana’s gone to the dark side, and how. “One thing I was told to remember was that you cannot underestimate the impact of spending a year with someone like Morgause … who she sees as the only person to ever accept her,” Katie explained, when asked about Morgana’s quick and brutal turn against everyone in Camelot — including her half-brother Arthur. So did Morgana ever have a chance? Merlin did, after all, try to save her in the fifth episode of the series, only to find that fate was not as easy to thwart as he might have thought. According to Katie, it was too little, too late. “I think there was a chance in series 2, where she’s desperate … he could have been to her what Gaius was to him.” Much like her co-star, Bradley James did, she lovingly blames it all on Merlin. “He tried to kill her, I don’t know why people forget that!” She said in mock-outrage.
“He’s got those big blue puppy eyes,” I suggested, “and he looks so cute and tragic when he does it.”
“He does!” she agreed. “We tease Colin on set about it all the time, and he’s just so great about it — he takes it and throws it right back.”
As for what comes next in Series 4, Katie seemed to have some idea, but remains tight-lipped. “I don’t want to give anything away,” she said. But whatever it is, you can be sure, in classic Morgana fashion, it will be done with cunning, grace, and an absolutely killer wardrobe.
Clacked by Julia Hass 
on Dec 17, 2010 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
Sucks that the audio file glitched! :( Glad you got to speak with her, though — she seems really into the role from her behind-the-scenes and commentary bits.