I’m really excited for HBO’s adaptation of His Dark Materials despite some of the worst casting for Lee Scoresby. I’m expecting it to be pretty good since it’ll be a series instead of a film, so there should be plenty of breathing room.
Well, Variety recently reported a number of casting choices for the voice work of the show and I think overall, it’ll be good. First, we finally know who will be playing Iorek Byrnison, one of the coolest characters in the books. Joe Tandberg will be lending his voice to the character and I’m a little worried, but hopeful. I was unfamiliar with Tandberg’s work, so I looked up a clip of his character Runar from Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers and it’s not what I was hoping for. That being said, voice actors can typically have a very wide range, so I’m hopeful that he can have a more powerful voice for Iorek.
Another member of the voice cast is David Suchet as Kaisa who is Serafina Pekkala’s (the witch) daemon. This one concerns me, not because I don’t have faith in Suchet, but because according to Variety, Kaisa is a gyrfalcon, but in the books he’s a goose! Did they change Kaisa? Why?
I’m interested to see how the whole voice cast performs, but I’m not overly concerned with them. Cristela Alonzo will be Hester (Lee’s daemon), Kit Connor will play Pantalaimon (Lyra’s daemon), Helen McCrory will be Stelmaria (Asriel’s daemon), and Mrs. Coulter’s Golden Monkey daemon will have animal noises and vocal characteristics from Brian Fisher who will also be the CFX coordinator and lead puppeteer. What do you think of these choices?