ITV Endeavour: Dakota Blue Richards first forgotten role aged 13 in Hollywood blockbuster with Danie

Publish date: 2024-06-04

Detective drama Endeavour - a prequel to Inspector Morse - is returning to our screens with a rerun this evening, July 30, and eagle-eyed viewers may recognise one of the show's stars from a popular fantasy film from 2007.

Dakota Blue Richards, who plays Shirley Trewlove in the series, is almost unrecognisable from her 13-year-old self who had the lead role in a Hollywood film alongside Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman and Ian McKellen.

The Golden Compass, released in 2007, is based on the 1995 Philip Pullman novel Northern Lights and stars Dakota Blue Richards - who was born in West London - as the main character, Lyra Belacqua.

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The film follows the adventures of Lyra, an orphan living in a parallel universe where every person is accompanied by a 'daemon' - their soul in an animal form.

The parallel universe is run by a ruling power who are against questioning of the Authority, and a group connected to the rulers are found to be kidnapping children.

Lyra, played by Dakota, joins a group of seafarers on a trip to the far North - where armoured polar bears live - in search of the missing children.

Since her role in the Hollywood blockbuster, Dakota has played the lead role of April in the TV film adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson's Dustbin Baby, and Franky Fitzgerald in the third generation cast of Skins.

Most recently, she appeared in the 2019 historical drama TV series Beecham House, set in Delhi in 1795.

Dakota has said that she has often questioned the fact that her role in Endeavour, which is set in the 1960s, is 'historically inaccurate' because her character WPC Shirley Trewlove would have been an 'anomaly' during her time.

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She told the Evening Standard: "I’m often there saying ‘why am I invited into this conversation when it’s obviously historically inaccurate?’ Trewlove has a radio and women wouldn’t have done then which is why there isn’t a place for it on my uniform.

"But you have to balance how historically accurate we’re going to be with the fact that we are in 2018 and I don’t think there is an excuse to have an all-male show."

Filming for the eighth series of Endeavour, set in 1971, finished in June and is scheduled to be broadcast later this year.

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