Steve Schofield © BBC
“One of my favorite shots of the series is when we find the Them in Hogback Wood,” says script supervisor Jemima Thomas. “We had a camera on a big wire rig, like a zip wire, and it just flew through the trees to find the children and their den.”
Wires seem to feature heavily for the young actors who play the gang that might one day save the world. Amma Ris, Ilan Galkoff and Alfie Taylor have just descended to the studio floor for a break in filming. They are followed down by Sam Taylor Buck, who plays the gang’s leader, a boy who is about to wake to powers that could serve as the final full stop in the history of the world. Under the gentle guidance of director Douglas Mackinnon, they are shooting additional material against a green screen. Despite being suspended in the air over several takes, they come back to Earth as if it’s second nature to them now.
“Everyone else loved it, but I was shaking,” admits Ilan Galkoff, who plays Brian, when considering how it felt when they first went up on wires. “You need a lot of core strength, and generally I’m quite a weak person.”
A slight, dark-haired boy with a winning smile, Ilan’s admission prompts much laughter from his young fellow cast members. They’re well aware that they’ve landed important roles in a production with huge audience expectation. While it doesn’t appear to have fazed them, the way they recount the experience of working on Good Omens suggests it has certainly brought them together. In talking to me about their experience on set and on location, reminding each other of memorable moments, they come across as firm friends.
ADAM: I think I’ll call him Dog. Saves a lot of trouble, a name like that.
The Antichrist child’s best friend. Adam runs with his fearsome hell-hound (trapped inside the body of a friendly pooch).
Christopher Raphael © BBC
ADAM: Have you got any more of the New Aquariums? Cos, we need to know everything.
Fortune comes knocking. New to the village of Tadfield, Anathema Device opens the door of her cottage to the Them. The kids are just curious to meet the new resident they’ve been told is a witch, while Anathema has no idea that one of them is key to her quest to stop the end of the world.
Christopher Raphael © BBC
“I’ve done a lot of musical theater and small TV projects,” says Ilan, “but something like this has been amazing. I’ve learned so much.”
Amma Ris, who plays Pepper, nods in agreement.
“This has been quite relaxed compared to musical theater,” she says, having appeared in The Lion King and School of Rock. “If you make an error on set it’s fine. You can just do it again. In theater, everyone can see!”
“You’ve got to get your lines right in theater,” agrees Alfie Taylor, who plays Wensleydale, sounding seasoned beyond his years.
In assembling their gang for Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman called upon elements of a lost childhood age found in the pages of Just William and Enid Blyton’s Famous Five. Neil has retained that spirit in the television adaptation, while pulling in a contemporary edge that’s most apparent in Amma Ris’s spirited Pepper.
“She’s a strong feminist with an internal fire,” says Amma with some conviction. “Pepper doesn’t like sexism and she’s politically aware. It’s an easy role for me to play as I have my strong opinions.”
Adam Young, dressed in strong colors to denote leadership.
Claire Anderson / Sophie Fretwell © BBC
Brian, wearing grubby clothing to echo Pollution.
In dressing the Them, Claire Anderson sought to capture a universal spirit of childhood while embodying each character with qualities that linked them to the Horsemen they ultimately battle.
Claire Anderson / Sophie Fretwell © BBC
Wensleydale, whose appetite for a healthy lunch connects him to Famine.
Claire Anderson / Sophie Fretwell © BBC
Pepper, a spirited girl who shares a taste for red with War.
Claire Anderson / Sophie Fretwell © BBC
Alfie Taylor is equally drawn to his character, but doesn’t see himself in Wensleydale as Amma does in Pepper. “Wensleydale likes science and how things work. He’s nerdy and kind of in his own world compared to the others, which isn’t really me. I’m not especially intelligent,” Alfie offers sadly as if to qualify the point, and then grins at how that comes across. “But like him I do wear glasses!”
Ilan Galkoff believes he has previous form when it comes to playing a role such as Brian. “My family say I’m always picked to play the grubby one,” he laughs. “He’s so different to me. I’m like a total neat freak. Brian is also quite immature in some ways. He just sort of hangs around the others.”
Listening to his three young co-stars is the thirteen-year-old who plays the Son of Satan. Sam Taylor Buck is flopped in a chair with his hands on the armrests. Whether or not he’s aware of the impression this creates in view of his role, Sam looks like a prince upon his throne before his loyal courtiers. He sports a mop of curly chestnut hair and a steel blue gaze I find a little disconcerting given the character he plays. Happily, he also smiles throughout and sounds endearingly upbeat when discussing the part.
“Well, he’s the Antichrist, but because of a mix-up at birth he joins a normal family. So he has this stable background and becomes quite a well-raised child.” Sam speaks as if building towards the punch line to a joke. “In his nature, Adam is someone who wants to kill everyone and destroy the world, but he’s also a peaceful, happy boy.”
So how does a normal, charming and engaging kid from Sheffield approach a character known affectionately in the novel as the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of this World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Father of Darkness? Sam takes the question in his stride.
“I play him as a split personality who phases in and out of being really quite horrible and then being normal,” he says. “I just have to imagine what it would be like to be this boy who has a voice in his ear telling him to destroy everything. My friends are terrified of the Antichrist, but they really like Adam,” he adds, looking warmly around at the others.
Unaware of his stirring powers, and with Anathema’s dog-eared New Aquarian magazines at hand, Adam’s interest in unexplained phenomena gives rise to a host of startling events around the world, from the rise of the Kraken to a close encounter with a UFO.
Christopher Raphael © BBC
On screen, Sam is clearly comfortable with both sides of his character. It’s brought together, as costume designer Claire Anderson sees it, by a quality present in each one. “Adam is a leader,” she says. “He’s in charge of his gang even before he knows he’s the Antichrist. I dressed him in blue because it’s strong and fresh and makes him look the most handsome of his counterparts. So he looks familiar and comfortable but with touches of timelessness. He could be a child from the fifties or from today.” There is no doubt that the four young actors consider the experience of working on Good Omens as a grand adventure. They’re also well aware that sharing the screen with a cast that includes David Tennant, Michael Sheen and Miranda Richardson among many others is a dream come true so early in their careers.
“I’ve loved seeing so many amazing actors perform in real life,” says Ilan.
“It’s been amazing working with the cast,” agrees Sam. “You learn so much from everything going on around you, including the hundreds of different jobs going on on set.”
The four nominate a wealth of high points in their work on the production, from working with stunt coordinator Cedric Proust on the wires to gaining insight into special and visual effects. When asked to name their greatest challenge, however, Sam, Amma, Ilan and Alfie are in complete agreement, and their response is surprising.
“I’m going to say the ice-cream eating,” says Amma, referring to a halcyon scene in Episode Two that takes place before the gang become aware that their leader is in fact the Son of Satan. “I’m not a fan, and I don’t like vanilla at all, and I got vanilla. We had to do thirty-nines takes of ice cream eating. And twenty-five with ice lollies. And it was just awful. My ice lolly also had vanilla ice cream in it, and I got brain freeze.”
“I got vanilla as well,” says Sam. “But I prefer chocolate.”
Alfie exchanges a look with him as if they’re both still troubled by the memory.
“I had strawberry,” he says. “I really don’t like strawberry.”
All eyes turn to Ilan Galkoff, who admits the flavor wasn’t the issue for him. “I had to take a whole double cone of chocolate ice cream and shove it in my mouth,” he says. “It was incredibly difficult.”
As all four actors are under the age of sixteen, strict guidelines come into play with regard to both their welfare and schooling. A chaperone accompanies the children throughout the production, who constantly records the time they’ve spent working to ensure the production complies with UK law. She’s also on hand to remind them of one other scene during the shoot that proved to be a steep learning curve, which prompts laughter from them all.
“This is going to sound really bad,” says Ilan. “But I’m fourteen and can’t ride a bike.” With some diplomacy, the chaperone points out that every one of them struggled at first in the saddle.
“I had a retro chopper with a basket on the front, which Ollie the dog sat in,” says Sam, referring to the canine that played the role of the Antichrist’s reshaped hell-hound. “Ollie squirmed around whenever we were riding, which made things difficult,” he adds. Then, with a mischievous gleam appearing in his eyes, Sam goes on to mention an incident on the Good Omens shoot that proved inconsequential but was subsequently amplified in the British press. “Ollie is the one that bit David Tennant,” he declares, and gleefully lords over the awkward silence that follows.
Sophie Mutevelian © BBC
Sophie Mutevelian © BBC
When asked about their most challenging moment of the production, all four young actors who play the Them nominated the multiple takes it took to nail the ice-cream-eating scene.
Sophie Mutevelian © BBC