First look at Natalie Dormer in Penny Dreadful: City of Angels as star transformed into ‘delicious’ shape-shifting demon
FANS of Penny Dreadful have been waiting for spin-off show City of Angels for years.
The horror series will hit screens at some point in 2020 courtesy of production studio Showtime and will mark a move away from the Victorian England backdrop of the original.
Set in 1938 Los Angeles, it will involve Mexican-American folklore as the inspiration behind its league of monsters, along with a hearty dose of man-made horrors.
The Third Reich, radical evangelism and institutionalised racism will all feed into the twists and turns of the narrative, which kicks off as a grisly murder rocks the city.
Now prospective viewers have been treated to a first look at one of the show’s dastardly villains, shape-shifting demon Magda, played by Natalie Dormer.
The actress described her alter ego as a “delicious, multi-dimensional thrill” to play.
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She serves as an “agent of chaos” who can “sow the seeds of disorder” and Dormer promised: “The audience will discover who those identities are as they continue to watch the show.”
Given her variety of forms, Dormer praised the part for offering a true challenge.
“There was an opportunity to get in the dressing-up box and play a range of iterations. You have a number of characters all under the guise Magda morphs into for the price of one,” she told Entertainment Weekly.
“Every good protagonist needs an antagonist. We can heighten the life and death and the violence by using a supernatural figure within the storytelling,” she went on.
As for the costumes – expect plenty of sex appeal.
“She brings the sauce, basically, is what I’m telling you,” she quipped.
In her first episode, Magda reveals her scepticism around the very notion of humanity.
“I give human beings a choice, but they choose time and time again to be seduced by the more baser, selfish roles,” she says in one monologue.
Penny Dreadful: City of Angels will also star Nathan Lane, Daniel Zovatto, Kerry Bishé, Amy Madigan, Brent Spiner, Lin Shaye, Rory Kinnear, Piper Perabo, Adam Rodriguez, Thomas Kretschmann, Michael Gladis, Dominic Sherwood and Ethan Peck.