Both actors look older than their book ages. They appear to be around the same age as one another - they have aged up Lyra so it stands to reason that they would do the same for Will. I thought both Amur Wilson and Nina Sosanya as his mum were excellent, along with Ruth Wilson the stand-out casting of the show.
shareDafne Keen (Lyra) and Amir Wilson (Will) were both obviously well past puberty so it made a nonsense of the whole thing. They had to be pre-pubescent so they weren't attracting dust. It was a critically essential part of the plot and the makers of this adaptation ignored it. Unbelievable !
I do agree with this. I did enjoy their performances and the show but they were clearly much too old - the scenes between Lyra and Roger, who looked a good 5-6 years younger, emphasised this. Children in film and TV are often cast to play younger characters - the filmmakers presumably looking for maturity and experience - but it was pretty hard to swallow, and will only become more so as the series progresses and the actors age.
shareThe dumb thing about it was that there was a girl in episode 6 called Rafiella Chapman who was the right age to play Lyra and it seemed to me was at least as good an actress as Dafne Keen. So if they had an age appropriate girl to play Lyra already in the production you have to ask the question why not cast her as Lyra ? Was it because they wanted to check the ethnic diversity box by casting the half Spanish Dafne instead of the Anglo Rafiella ? I suspect that may have been the reason.