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"Merlin is back, and as ever Digital Spy is here to provide you with some top-class coverage of the BBC One fantasy drama! With the fantastic fifth series about to make its debut, we spoke to Angel Coulby about Gwen&amp;#039;s new role as queen of Camelot, how Merlin has changed since its early days and why one particular ambition for her character has gone unfulfilled... &amp;gt; Bradley James on Merlin future: &amp;quot;You need to leave on a high&amp;quot; Gwen is now queen of Camelot - how does that change her and her relationship with Arthur (Bradley James)? &amp;quot;Well, she&amp;#039;s a lot more assertive now - she&amp;#039;s had three years in between series to grow into this role and I think she&amp;#039;s taken it on very well.  &amp;quot;I always thought she&amp;#039;d be quite a good queen anyway - she&amp;#039;s always been very noble and had a lot of humility. She cares about the people - not just the aristocracy but the people who live in the lower town, so she&amp;#039;s looking out for everybody. &amp;quot;In terms of her relationship with Arthur, they&amp;#039;re quite a good team - they confide in each other, they trust each other and they seem to be ruling very well as a partnership. They&amp;#039;re very close, I think.&amp;quot; And does being made queen change her relationship with Merlin (Colin Morgan)? &amp;quot;No, I think the friendship is definitely still there. Perhaps the only difference is he now sometimes calls her, &amp;#039;My lady&amp;#039; - that&amp;#039;s about all! She still respects him hugely and asks him for advice if she needs it. They&amp;#039;ve still got that close friendship.&amp;quot; It feels like the build-up is over and you&amp;#039;re now acting out the famous part of the Arthurian legend - is that exciting? &amp;quot;Well, for me particularly, I&amp;#039;ve been waiting for this moment - to become queen and to see how Gwen fits into that role. It gives you a bit more scope in terms of storylines, so I&amp;#039;ve always been quite excited about this moment. &amp;quot;Yeah, I guess it is exciting that we&amp;#039;re playing out the legends, although we are still doing it in our own way. You can&amp;#039;t, for example, deal with some of the much darker elements from the stories, because it&amp;#039;s just not that kind of show.  &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;d be making a very different show if we started to go down that road, so we&amp;#039;ve always handled that [type of thing] a bit more carefully and made sure that the show&amp;#039;s still geared towards the audience we want it to be geared towards.&amp;quot;  Mordred (now played by Alexander Vlahos) is back in series five. Can you give us any hints about his return? &amp;quot;Um... Alex is great, but I can&amp;#039;t really tell you any more than that! We&amp;#039;re sworn to secrecy, but yeah, he comes back. I don&amp;#039;t actually have too many dealings with him in terms of my character, so that&amp;#039;s another reason why I can&amp;#039;t tell you too much!&amp;quot; We also know that Uther does return in some form. What was it like having Anthony Head back on set? &amp;quot;It was lovely - we&amp;#039;ve really missed not having Anthony around, so when I found out that he was coming back, I was really excited. Although I have just been working with him on another show [BBC Two drama Dancing on the Edge], so it seems that we&amp;#039;re destined to work together forever... which is no bad thing - I love working with Tony!&amp;quot; How much interaction does Gwen have with Morgana this series? &amp;quot;Morgana is the main villain of the show now and we do interact in this series. There&amp;#039;s quite an exciting storyline involved with them both - it&amp;#039;s in the middle of the series, so that&amp;#039;s something to look forward to.&amp;quot; Do you miss working with Katie McGrath? A lot of your scenes in the early series were together... &amp;quot;Yeah, we haven&amp;#039;t worked together for a long time now. It&amp;#039;s been two or three years since we&amp;#039;ve actually had any direct involvement. There was a little bit last series, but generally we haven&amp;#039;t, so it was really nice to be working with her again. There&amp;#039;s a juicy storyline that we both get to play out, so yeah, it&amp;#039;s really fun.&amp;quot;  Gwen and Morgana faced off with swords in the last series. Does Gwen get to be an action queen? &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s not as much of an action queen as I&amp;#039;d like. She does take charge at times definitely - she&amp;#039;s very much involved in the court and the council. She&amp;#039;s not a silent partner... but she doesn&amp;#039;t wield a sword as much as I would like to see her doing so, unfortunately! I&amp;#039;m still yet to get that moment of her riding on a horse with a sword on her back, but hopefully that&amp;#039;ll happen.&amp;quot; Do you encourage the writers to give you more action-packed scenes? &amp;quot;Yeah, I keep dropping hints, but so far it&amp;#039;s not happening!&amp;quot; There&amp;#039;s often talk of how much Merlin has changed and grown darker. Have you ever gone back to the early episodes and been shocked by how different the show is now? &amp;quot;Yeah definitely. I think you learn from what you&amp;#039;ve done in the past and you try and improve on it. The writers and the producers want to be more ambitious with the show each time round and I think also the audience has grown up. The characters are dealing with life-and-death situations, so it would seem strange not to put a more serious, dramatic slant on those things and respect the age of the viewers who are watching it. &amp;quot;This series, and I think last series as well, we focused more on the central characters and Arthur&amp;#039;s emotional journey, so you&amp;#039;re dealing with a more psychological show, I guess.&amp;quot;  Are you ever surprised by the range of Merlin fans - that the show&amp;#039;s audience does range from young children to much older people? &amp;quot;Yeah. I mean, just today we were doing an interview and the lady interviewing us, who was in her 30s, was saying, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m a massive Merlin fan&amp;#039; - lots of people of all different ages do really love it. I think you can sit down and watch the show as a family and everyone will enjoy it, together. &amp;quot;But am I surprised? I think it&amp;#039;s a really well-made show, so I&amp;#039;m not surprised that it&amp;#039;s got the respect that it has.&amp;quot; Can you give us one final teaser for the fifth series of Merlin? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d say you can see Gwen being quite ruthless in this series, which is something you won&amp;#039;t have seen before.&amp;quot; Merlin returns to BBC One this Saturday (October 6) at 7.45pm. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/merlin/interviews/a410039/merlin-angel-coulby-series-five-qa-gwen-is-quite-ruthless-now/>