Dónal Finn on The Wheel of Time effect: ‘People travelled from phenomenal distances. They were incredible fans’

It was a roll of the dice for Dónal Finn to sign up for The Wheel of Time. The Cork actor realised the implications of appearing in the TV version of the iconic fantasy series while starring in a stage version of John Carney’s Sing Street in Boston last February. Night after night he’d meet Wheel of Time fans who’d come because they wanted to see the man cast as Mat Cauthon, the ultimate rogue with a heart of gold.

“I tried not to think too much about it. There were times when I was forced to acknowledge how much people love him,” he says. “People travelled from phenomenal distances. They were incredible fans of the books who might not have a connection to Sing Street at all. Later, I was working on a project in Donegal” – Four Letters of Love, opposite Pierce Brosnan and Helena Bonham Carter – “and I met the props master. I go, ‘Hi, I’m Dónal.’ He says, ‘I know who you are.’ He pulled up his sleeve and had a tattoo of a quote from Mat.”

Mat Cauthon is the role of a lifetime for Finn, who comes to the Prime Video series after appearances in the Netflix fantasy shows Cursed and The Witcher and in the BBC drama SAS Rogue Heroes, in which he played Eoin McGonigal, a Dubliner who served with the Royal Ulster Rifles in the second World War. The scrutiny will be huge: after Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, Jordan’s 14-volume Wheel of Time is arguably the most beloved fantasy franchise ever, with more than 100 million books sold.

Of all the saga’s heroes, none is more adored than Mat. He’s a lovable rake, and a loyal companion to the story’s saviour figure, Rand al’Thor – essentially Jesus meets King Arthur meets Hugh Hefner. Imagine if Sam Gamgee in The Hobbit were a boozer, gambler and womaniser. That’s Mat in a nutshell.

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Finn auditioned for the part several years ago; he was disappointed to lose out to Barney Harris. The English actor made for a fine Mat, only to have to depart towards the end of shooting the first season.

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Finn was a continent away at the time, filming Rogue Heroes in Morocco. Then his agent got in touch: could he fly to the Czech Republic to speak to the producers of a project for which he had auditioned previously? He suspected it might be The Wheel of Time, which has its sprawling base in central Europe. But even as he hopped on a plane, nothing was confirmed.

“Everything was in red tape. I didn’t know it was The Wheel of Time for a stretch,” he says. “I went to Prague, and it didn’t allow me time to think too much. I was pursuing this opportunity. That was it.”

It’s a long way from the north Co Cork village of Dromina. Finn gives the sense of a man still pinching himself. Growing up, he was a keen hurler and footballer. But his sporting career took a setback when he was injured. The stage filled the void, becoming his first love.

“I had a great teacher named Neil Moylan in primary school. He clocked that I was looking a bit forlorn on the playground. He said, ‘We’re doing a musical. Maybe you should get involved.’”

The musical was Aladdin. Once he got on that magic carpet, he never looked back. “I loved it. I was playing the young fella; my mate was playing the carpet. I was pretending to stand on him, and he was flying me around the room. It tapped into a great sense of escapism: there was always an opportunity to try something new. I did plays, pantos and musicals in Mallow and Fermoy and then in Cork, at the Opera House and Everyman.”

Even as his panto career soared, he never imagined acting was something he might do for a living. “Then someone said you could always do a degree in it in London; there are colleges that facilitate furthering a career in this. I genuinely thought it was like going to Hogwarts. There is no way someone is going to shake your hand and give you a bachelor’s degree in acting. When I realised that, I pursued it as hard as I could and was really proud to go to London and study at Lamda,” he says, referring to London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

In the TV adaptation he is shown protecting his younger sisters from their abusive parents. It was a great showpiece for Harris and leaves Finn with a lot to live up to

The Wheel of Time is a big swing for Amazon, which has been eager to land a Game of Thrones-scale global hit. The show, which is said to have a budget of $80 million a season, has a starry lead in the Oscar- and Bafta-nominated actor Rosamund Pike. She plays Moiraine Damodred, a sorceress searching for a hero of legend, the Dragon Reborn, who must unite humanity against the Sauron-esque Dark One.

Pike is supported by a charismatic young cast. They include Josha Stradowski as Rand, Madeleine Madden as his sometime love interest, Egwene, and Money Heist’s Álvaro Morte as Logain, a “false dragon” who claims to have the messiah’s supernatural powers. There are also smaller parts for Irish actors Maria Doyle Kennedy and Daryl McCormack as members of the Tuatha’an, or Travelling People, who help the heroes escape the Dark One and his minions.

That first series also leaned heavily into Mat’s backstory. In the TV adaptation he is shown protecting his younger sisters from their abusive parents. It was a great showpiece for Harris and leaves Finn with a lot to live up to.

The Cork man has, however, tried not to overthink the challenge. He looks to the example of Michael Gambon, who took up the mantle from the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore in Harry Potter after Harris’s death. Dumbledore was still Dumbledore. And Mat will still be Mat, even if portrayed by a different actor.

“I feel very lucky to have this opportunity as an actor to get into a character that is so vast and so loved. And to carry on that spirit of the character that is so clear in the source material, while bringing myself to it.”

Series one drew mixed reviews: some fans were unhappy about changes made to the books; worse, the final several episodes were rushed – partly because production was wrapping just as the pandemic began. (There was also a moronic backlash against its diverse casting.)

Series two lands more solidly. As the story begins, Rand has reacted badly to the news that he’s the Dragon and has vanished. Meanwhile, Egwene and her friend Nynaeve are training to be magic users with Moiraine’s Aes Sedai order. Poor Mat is in the stickiest situation of all. Having parted from his companions last season, he’s a prisoner of the wicked and manipulative Aes Sedai priestess, Liandrin.

Being a rogue comes from a place of wanting to lift himself and the people around him out of such glaringly obvious challenges and hardships

—  Finn on Mat

But can he escape before it’s too late? Following the arc of the books, he begins to pick up on signs that fate has a specific path for him – from which he isn’t allowed to deviate. At some point Mat will have to accept that he is destined to be on Rand’s side during the Last Battle against the Dark One – whether he wants to be or not.

Mat is a natural anti-hero, but Finn sees him as more than an outlaw. His performance digs into the character’s abusive upbringing. His roguishness is, the actor believes, a defence mechanism against a world that has never given him a fair shake. As an Irish person, Finn feels well equipped to play that role. Mat is a troubled charmer, his extroversion concealing a streak of ennui. These are qualities Irish people may recognise all too well.

“He has his own turmoils. There is so much going on for him,” Finn says. “He’s an incredibly conflicted man, which is to do with what is expected of him in terms of responsibility and loyalty to his family and friends. Mat is on a path to discovery as to what is predetermination and what isn’t. You have to understand that being a rogue comes from a place of wanting to lift himself and the people around him out of such glaringly obvious challenges and hardships, and out of the arduousness and the plight of their day-to-day lives. He sees that there is a responsibility for someone to alleviate that. That speaks to an inherently Irish quality.”

Wheel of Time season two is on Prime Video from Friday, September 1st