Merlin: Secrets and Magic

Secrets & Magic - the series that goes behind the scenes

to reveal how Merlin's made.

Coming up - there's a bit of a do as we gatecrash a right royal wedding...

and witness what it takes to be a troll.

It's very slovenly and hunched over. Has a funny voice, like that.

Revolting!

Plus, we see a prosthetics job of monster proportions

and find out that not everyone was made up with the make-up.

You see this kind of troll walking down the hallways

as you go and get your lunch, and you're thinking...

"Hope she's not sitting beside me!"

All this and more on Merlin: Secrets & Magic.

Today, there's love in the air on the set of BBC Wales drama, Merlin.

Action!

And cast and crew have congregated here to film Camelot's royal wedding.

But boy, does the bride have a big secret.

Today, we are filming my wedding to Uther Pendragon.

And it's a very important day for Lady Catrina.

Because if she can get through this wedding, she will become

Queen of Camelot, and then be able to take over the kingdom.

Action!

But what inspired the creators to come up with this Catrina and troll tale?

The great thing about coming back to a second series

is because the audience knows the characters,

we can explore those characters in more detail now.

And, um, just as we wanted to challenge Arthur with falling in love for the first time,

we wanted to see a more tender side to Uther.

Action!

We thought, "Why don't we give him a love interest?"

And so we were very keen to see a softer side to Uther,

a more romantic side.

And then we thought, "Why don't we make his wife a troll?"

HE LAUGHS As you do.

We just thought, let's spin it around Uther falling in love with Lady Catrina, this beautiful woman,

and we can enjoy the fact that this man of high status, this incredibly powerful, successful king

is being completely duped and is falling in love with this hideous...

He's but a puppet in my hands!

..farty... TROLL BREAKS WIND

..snotty troll.

The idea of the wicked stepmother, I thought was great.

You know, how she would manipulate the children and how she'd get in and mess things up.

And, actually, it's just about how she gets in and messes me up!

I should retire myself.

When we did the read-through for the troll two-parter,

Sarah Parish came to the read-through and she was

sort of elegant and lovely and reading all the Lady Catrina lines.

And she was like a lady.

And there's a point in the script where she's the troll for the first time. And she became the troll.

She went down and into it and she did the voice, and the whole room cracked up.

Haaah! Huh!

SHE COUGHS What's that?

Compliments of the King.

SNIFFS Revolting!

It was so unexpected, so out of character, so different to Lady Catrina,

and at that point, we all knew this was going to be an amazing episode.

Lady Catrina, is it really you?

I can hardly believe it myself.

'Being Lady Catrina is lovely.'

You'll spend one day as a horrible, ugly troll,

and the next, you're all glammed up.

The in-between troll/Lady Catrina is quite hard to do,

because she looks like Lady Catrina but she acts like a troll,

so she's very slovenly and hunched over. Has a funny voice like that.

It was the boy Merlin.

It seems he has magic.

Do not concern yourself.

I resisted him easily enough.