The fantasy we’ve been waiting for since GoT ended

When her character in lavish fantasy drama His Dark Materials was described as “the mother of all evil”, acclaimed actor Ruth Wilson was hooked.

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Ruth Wilson admits she never heard of the character she was being offered in the lavish television adaptation of fantasy epic His Dark Materials but she didn’t take much convincing.

“My agent phoned me up and said, ‘They’ve offered you the role of Mrs Coulter.’ I didn’t know who she was but once I read the description of her as, ‘The Mother Of All Evil and the cesspit of moral filth,’ I thought, ‘Well, I can’t turn that down!’ ”

Best known for her troubled characters in such dramatic television fare as The Affair, Mrs Wilson, and Luther, Wilson’s role as the sinister Mrs Coulter in the adaptation of Philip Pullman’s critically acclaimed trilogy was a welcome change for the award-winning Brit.

The lead antagonist of the first book, Northern Lights — also called The Golden Compass for the 2007 film starring Nicole Kidman — Mrs Coulter is beautiful, persuasive and completely and utterly ruthless His Dark Materials, an eight-part adaptation from writer Jack Thorne, is set in an alternate universe where humans co-exist with their animal companions, called daemons, who represent their human counterpart’s soul.

Starring alongside Wilson are Dafne Keen (Logan) as Lyra Belacqua, James McAvoy (X-Men franchise) as Lord Asriel, and Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mary Poppins Returns) as Lee Scoresby.

“My (golden-haired) monkey is a particularly nasty little daemon,” notes Wilson.

Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter in His Dark Materials.

Mrs Coulter is head of the Gobblers, aka the General Oblation Board, a secret church-funded project which abducts children and separates them from their daemons. The heinous act stops the youngsters attracting Dust, a substance through which they could view another dimension, believed by the church to be the manifestation of Original Sin.

But in separating the children from their daemons, the Gobblers are, in fact, removing their souls.

The story’s young heroine Lyra Belacqua embarks on a quest to save the children when her best friend is taken by the Gobblers.

“Mrs Coulter is one of the most complex female characters in fiction. People are scared of her – but they love her,” Wilson laughs. “She’s really fun, incredibly complicated and endlessly fascinating and in this series we’re going to get the chance to dig in deeper into who she was
in the books.”

Ruth Wilson’s Mrs Coulter is a sinister figure in charge of a secret church project to separate children from their daemons.

Certainly, Wilson was quickly enamoured of the world she had entered. “I was immediately engaged,” she nods, enthusiastically. “It’s complex. The fairies and the philosophies work on a micro level so that it’s about family, betrayal and love and, on a huge level, it’s about religion, state, authoritarian dictatorships and the good within humans.”

Like many of her British peers, Wilson, 37, began her career acting in period pieces, notably the titular character in 2006 BBC drama, Jane Eyre. The role not only marked the first step towards what would become an impressive career, it also validated her decision to become an actor. “Once I landed Jane Eyre, my mum stopped asking me, ‘When are you going to get a proper job?’ ”

She hails from a middle-class family in London worlds away from the entertainment industry, hence her parents’ concern.

“My dad worked in finance, my mum is a probation officer; I have three older brothers who are teachers, and one in the army,” she says.

Ruth Wilson in red carpet mode. Picture: AFP

Her grandfather, meanwhile, is the Mr Wilson referenced in the TV miniseries, Mrs Wilson, a project she produced and starred in as her own grandmother. Her grandfather, Alexander Wilson, led a duplicitous life as an MI6 agent. After his death, her grandmother discovered he had another wife with whom he raised children. In fact, he had two further wives, though she died without any knowledge of those other women.

Wilson herself leads a relatively low-key life, though she’s not exempt from the occupational hazard of being romantically linked to her ­co-stars. She has reportedly dated Jude Law, when she worked with him in the theatre production of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie (2011), Johnny Depp, her co-star in The Lone Ranger (2012), as well as Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom she worked on the theatrical production of Constellations (2015). She was also linked to The Affair’s Joshua Jackson, her onscreen husband in the series which began in 2014.

She’s used to the rumours, though, and not entirely concerned.

Ruth Wilson with Dominic West in a scene from The Affair.

“When it comes to those stories, you just have to bat them off,” she says, casually. “It doesn’t affect me.”

Fans were affected though by her seemingly abrupt departure from The Affair when her beloved lead character, Alison Lockhart, was unexpectedly killed off in season four. Rumours abounded on the reasons why, ranging from pay disparity between herself and co-star Dominic West, to her apparent distaste for the storyline but due to legal issues, she is unable to reveal the reason for her swift disappearance. However, she does reveal she hoped for a different outcome.

“I’d hoped that she would have walked off into the sunset with her child but it was probably inevitable that she was going to end up back in the ocean where she came from,” she says, referring to Lockhart’s drowned body.

Wilson herself has made only positive career waves to date though she’s thankful for her slightly meandering climb to success.

Ruth Wilson with Calam Lynch and Otto Farrant in a scene from Mrs Wilson. Picture: Steffan Hill

“I don’t think I’m that famous and I appreciate the way it’s happened for me because it’s been slow and steady. I still go to the gym and I still do Barry’s Boot Camp,” she chuckles.

“I remember when I did
The Lone Ranger, people said to me, ‘Your life’s going to completely change!’ Well, it didn’t,” she smiles. “There was still no one sitting outside my door.”

With a rabid fan base — its books having sold 18 million copies in 40 languages — His Dark Materials might really change her life, and there’s talk of US network HBO’s excitement it has found its replacement for Game Of Thrones.

Is she expecting children to start running away from her when next month the series airs?

“Well, I think my nieces and nephews are never going to want me to babysit ever again, which I’m quite happy about,” she jokes.

“Actually, I have one coming to stay with me next week and I said to her, ‘I think that’ll be the last time you’re going to want to come and stay’.”

* His Dark Materials screens on Foxtel’s Fox Showcase from November 5