We’re still hours away from the series premiere of Freeform’s Shadowhunters (Tuesday, 9/8c), but star Dominic Sherwood is already excited for fans to see the finale.
“The season ends with something the ‘shippers are not going to expect at all,” Sherwood tells TVLine. “It’s not in the books. They’re not going to expect what happens to happen.”
Because the supernatural drama is based on Cassandra Clare’s popular Mortal Instruments books — which follow a motley-yet-attractive crew of New York City-based demon slayers — Sherwood knows the series’ biggest spoilers are merely a Google search away. He’s more excited for fans to see what’s been added.
“We have stuff that’s in the same vein, that could have been in the books, but just wasn’t,” he says. “It’s the same characters behaving differently. I’m excited for [the fans] to see that because they don’t know the new version of this story.”
Katherine McNamara plays Clary Fray — a newbie Shadowhunter who finds herself in an unspeakably complicated relationship with Jace — and also acknowledges the difficulties of balancing the show’s vision with the books’ foundation.
“There’s pressure on all of us,” McNamara tells TVLine. “People who read these books have such personal relationships with these characters. The way Cassie writes is so rich; they really are complete, well-rounded people. Well, ‘people’ is a term I use very loosely — half the characters aren’t actually people.”
Still, there’s one scene that holds a special place in both actors’ hearts: the infamous Clary/Jace slap.
“They released that scene in one of the promos, and it was gif’d about a million times,” says McNamara. “I just got a whole line of gifs on my Twitter feed. It gave me a chuckle.”
But the scene was less of a laughing matter for Sherwood, who admits he’s now “scared” of his leading lady: “I thought, ‘How hard can Kat slap? She’s, like, less than 100 pounds. Hit me in the face. It’s totally fine.’ Girl can hit! It really hurt, and we did it about 150 times.”
Are you planning to check out Shadowhunters tonight? Book readers, what are you looking forward to? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.
