Perhaps one of the strongest aspects of Crossing Swords is its voice cast. The roster of talent features the likes of Nicholas Hoult, Seth Green, Tara Strong, Yvette Nichole Brown, Tony Hale, and Luke Evans. One of the biggest shocks of the series was Evan’s work as King Merriman, whose voice work in the series is almost unrecognizable until the credits begin to roll and the realization hits.
We recently had the chance to chat with some of the cast behind Crossing Swords and asked Luke Evans just how he went about developing the character of King Merriman and commented on just how unrecognizable he was in the role. For Evans, it was fun for him getting to figure out how he wanted to present this absurd character. In fact, there were various versions he went through before landing upon the crass King we now from Crossing Swords now.
Well, thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment that you didn’t know it was me, that was part of the challenge, I think. Well it’s, I got to see an image of him when I said yes and they send me a couple of pre-vis images of Merriman, I then went through and they said “you can do what you want, you can try anything, come with lots of options and we’ll choose one that fits.” I narrowed it down to probably like three or four, one was British, one was cockney, one was very well spoken and upper-class.
But the one that fit was, I mean, cause you know Nick Hoult is British and he’s doing this American and I thought well maybe I should find some sort of rough, cigar-smoking, heavy-drinking, gravely sounding voice and then you know I saw this character come to life with his little mustache that moves and I was like “Oh, okay yeah that fits,” you know?
Luke Evans
We previously spoke with the creators of Crossing Swords on what made them initially want Evans for a role, and how he landed it. As they previously teased, Evans was always on their radar for the role because his work on Robot Chicken. Evans surprised the heck out of them with just how much of himself he’d thrown into such a ridiculous role, that they were determined to work with him more going forward.
Season 2 of Crossing Swords is streaming now on Hulu.
