- I'm going to explain it very carefully
as an official British person.
(upbeat music)
Hello, I'm Ben Barnes and I play General Kirigan
in Netflix's show Shadow and Bone,
and I'm with Buzzfeed,
and I'm going to answer some of your questions.
What is my favorite emoji?
Oh, that's very good.
I have become quite partial to the black heart recently.
That was the thing that sort of came up,
actually, when I got this job in Shadow and Bone.
Do you know what?
I got my phone here.
I'm going to see what I've used most recently
I've been using the pancakes quite a lot,
but I think that's because during lockdown,
I've been eating quite a lot of pancakes.
(upbeat music)
Most challenging role I've ever had to play.
I think the, the role that I've played
that I prepared the most for,
I played a character called Ryan
in a film called Jackie and Ryan,
and I learned to play the guitar.
So I had lessons, sort of a couple of hours a day,
every day for months.
And, you know, just to the point where, you know
there's all those songs about like old Brian Adams songs
but "played until my fingers bled."
I did.
My fingers were actually bleeding.
That's difficult because I've played
quite a lot of psychopaths, and murderers,
and evil villainous types as of late.
And then early on in my career,
they quite a lot of earnest, quite heroic characters,
and I'm not sure,
I think most of us exist somewhere in the middle.
I played a wannabe rock star in a film called Killing Bono,
who was an absolute (indistinct),
an absolute fool of a man.
(Ben stumbles for words)
Well, I made him into a full...
Maybe that one.
I don't know.
No, it's probably somewhere
between Killing Bono and Jackie and Ryan,
I would say.
(energetic music)
I really like films, and TV, and stories
that are about hope, and about identity,
and where we fit in, and where we belong.
And I think that even if you're playing the villain
or the antagonist in the story,
often, there is an opportunity to show other sides.
I think, you know, as human beings,
we all have the capacity to be everything.
So there's always opportunity
for sort of redemption
and to see, you know, where someone is tough
and hard on their exterior,
where are they soft and vulnerable,
and my interest as an actor is to take
characters that seem one thing
and, and show where they are, the antithesis of that thing.
(upbeat music)
I would be lying if I said
that every time someone fan cast me
as pretty much anything online
I didn't get a little buzz of excitement.
You know and I know it's only three people,
but every time those three people say,
you know, I'd love Ben Barnes to be Batman,
or I'd love Ben Barnes to be James Bond,
or I'd love him to be the next sort of Marvel, anything,
it definitely gives me like five minutes of, sort of,
emboldened swagger, even if I'm just around the house.
I'm just like, yeah, Batman.
And then you're not.
(upbeat music)
I feel like I know all of the major superheroes
'cause I'm a big fan of superhero stuff.
I've never missed a DC a Marvel film,
or any of the shows pretty much.
And so I feel like a lot of them
have kind of been taken and interpreter.
I do like the slightly off kilter ones.
Which is why, you know,
when they asked me to play, you know,
Jigsaw in the Punisher,
I was like, oh no, he's a really damaged,
that could be a really damaged person.
That's kind of interesting to me.
So I think my strengths are probably not
in the kind of Superman, pec-flexing territory,
probably more in the, you know, in the slight,
in the sort of slightly broken humanity
of what the superheroes are,
which is why the sort of the Batmans and the Moon Knights,
and things like that have always kind of appealed
to me a bit more.
But yeah, it's probably one that I don't, haven't heard of.
Then someone else will tell me that I'd be great as that.
And then I'll do that.
(upbeat music)
I love fantasy as a genre, in general.
I love the way it can sort of tell stories
through allegory and, you know,
you've got this fantastical world of cloaks,
and magic, and horses, and armored trains,
and pistols, and heists, and all of that.
But essentially, it's every single character
has the same plight and ambition,
which is to resolve that they're sort of demons
and find out where they belong.
You know, as I get on in my career, you know,
you want to know what you're telling the story for.
And this particular character,
I think was, again, it was one
that I was sort of vaguely fan cast in
over a period of time.
Like I said before,
I was just think there was opportunity
to turn someone who was kind of very mysterious
and powerful and see where there might be hope
and a kernel of love left in him.
So that, that was what was interesting to me.
(upbeat music)
Ah, now we're talking, this is better.
Well, the drinking actually in the book,
that he's sipping on is called Kavas,
which I've no idea what that tastes like.
It's a bit like butterbeer in Harry Potter, isn't it?
You've just to have no idea.
And then you drink it at Universal Studios
and you regret it.
I think he's probably like a whiskey,
like a straight whiskey guy,
or maybe a gin and tonic kinda man?
Cocktails. Maybe a Moscow mule?
Maybe that's what he drinks,
out of one of those fancy copper mugs.
That sounds like him.
(upbeat music)
What was I listening to?
I was listening to a lot of Muse
but that Exogenesis album, sort of grand grandiose stuff.
I usually make a playlist for characters
but in this instance, it didn't seem to make very much,
it didn't seem to make very much sense.
Anything with drums and cellos at the same time.
(upbeat music)
I think it would be brilliant
because we've got a lot of musical people,
particularly Kit, who plays Jesper is...
He used to delight me by coming around,
I got a piano while I was there,
'cause I want to continue like, you know,
practicing and writing songs, and playing while I was there.
And he used to come over and delight me by playing
the Back to The Future theme tune on it
and stuff like that.
I don't, I'm not a big fan of musical episodes of things,
which aren't already musicals.
I love, I love musicals.
And I love so - you know, genres with music in them.
And if you set out to make that, then great,
but doing a musical episode as something
has always struck me as a really weird thing.
(upbeat music)
Well, I, I sort of started out doing that
and not some musical stuff when I was younger,
and I've always loved like,
sometimes stuff like Into The Woods.
I always wanted to play the Wolf and the Prince in that.
When I was younger,
I really loved the music from Jesus Christ Superstar,
thought that was really cool.
And then I've always wanted to play
Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls as well,
Brando in the movie version of that.
It's just one of the coolest things you'll ever see.
(upbeat music)
Every job I do, I nick something, yeah.
I've got various things dotted around my house,
above my fireplace I've got my sword from the Narnia movies.
From this job, I actually took
one of the beautiful black caftans that I was wearing.
And then I bought this giant black mannequin
and I put it on that.
And then I put it in our show runner, Eric,
I'd put it in his office.
So, you know, if we get a season two and he's writing that,
I'll just be sort of looming behind him in his desk.
(upbeat music)
I don't know if you can expect one,
but I get tagged on Narnia reunions quite often,
'cause you know, Anna Popplewell, who played Susan,
and Will Poulter, who played Eustace,
still, you know, they're two of my best friends.
So I hang out with them all the time.
So I get to have Narnia reunions often
and I still speak to lots of people involved with that show.
Yeah, no. I get to have them but you don't.
(upbeat music)
This is a very good question.
And I'm going to explain it very carefully
as an official British person.
You boil the kettle and you put the, preferably PG tips,
Triangle-shaped bag in the mug.
Then when the kettle is just boiled,
you pour the water into the mug.
You let it steep for at least a couple of minutes.
You then take the teabag out.
Anything else is sacrilege.
You take the teabag out,
and then you pour in a splash of milk
and stir it and then it will be perfect.
(upbeat music)