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It's been 14 years since Travis Beacham's script A Killing on Carnival Row scored a spot on the very first installment of the Hollywood Blacklist, but now we're just weeks away from the Carnival Row series debuting on Amazon. It's a fantasy set in a highly creative and detailed world so this synopsis only scratches the surface of what's coming our way on August 30th, but here it goes: the show takes place in a Victorian fantasy world where mythological creatures lose their homelands at the hands of invading human armies. In a small corner of this world, we find Orlando Bloom's Rycroft Philostrate, a human detective who reunites with a former lover, a refugee faerie named Vignette Stonemoss played by Cara Delevingne.

Again, that's really only two descriptors for a show with an extensive ensemble and a significant amount of world-building so it probably won't come as a surprise when I tell you, I had a lot of questions for the team behind the show when they visited the Collider suite at San Diego Comic-Con 2019. We got to sit down with Beacham, executive producer Marc Guggenheim, Bloom, David Gyasi who plays a wealthy faun named Agreus, and Tamzin Merchant who plays Imogen Spurnrose, a young human woman with her eye on Agreus. You can catch our full chat in the video at the top of this article and, if you'd like, there's also a handy interview breakdown below.

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Image via Amazon Studios

Travis Beacham, Marc Guggenheim, Orlando Bloom, David Gyasi & Tamzin Merchant:

  • Beacham on taking the idea from the 2005 Black List to becoming an Amazon series.
  • What pulled Carnival Row out of "development hell?"
  • Guggenheim on never saying "this can't be done" when working on Carnival Row.
  • After working on so many fantasy franchises, is there anything about Carnival Row that really wowed Bloom?
  • Gyasi on his character's defiance; is it peaceful or violent?
  • Merchant talks about Imogen's more redeeming qualities.

Here's the official synopsis for Carnival Row:

Orlando Bloom (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Cara Delevingne (Suicide Squad) star in Carnival Row, a series set in a Victorian fantasy world filled with mythological immigrant creatures whose exotic homelands were invaded by the empires of man. This growing population struggles to coexist with humans — forbidden to live, love, or fly with freedom. But even in darkness, hope lives, as a human detective, Rycroft Philostrate (Bloom), and a refugee faerie named Vignette Stonemoss (Delevingne) rekindle a dangerous affair despite an increasingly intolerant society. Vignette harbors a secret that endangers Philo’s world during his most important case yet: a string of gruesome murders threatening the uneasy peace of the Row.

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Image via Amazon Studios