Ben Barnes on ‘Shadow and Bone’ Season 2: ‘He’s nastier’

nypost.com:

Ben Barnes co-stars as General Kirigan, aka The Darkling, in the Netflix fantasy series “Shadow and Bone,” and in Season 2 (premiering Thursday, March 16), “He enters this much nastier era,” Barnes, 41, told The Post.Based on a popular book series, the show is set in the fantasy land of Ravka.

It follows orphan girl Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) as she discovers that she has special powers. In Season 1, she became swept up under the mentorship and romance of the mysterious General Kirigan (Barnes).

By the end of Season 1, he revealed himself to be the villain, seeking to rule over Ravka by any means necessary. Season 2 kicks off with him scheming with an army of magical shadowy creatures at his beck and call, as Alina and her friends try to stop him. “In the first season, he had slightly different tactics in terms of going about his agenda,” said Barnes.“He was using manipulation, and charm, hoping to go about things by persuading people to help him.

In the second season, he’s literally been overwhelmed by these poisonous toxic shadow creatures inside of him – in an interesting representation of this toxic masculinity of his, I think.