Tonight, MTV launches one of its most ambitious series’ ever, The Shannara Chronicles, a fantasy show based on Terry Brooks’ wildly popular Shannara novels.

While waiting for the two-hour series premiere, airing with limited commercials, thank you very much, Andrew Greene had the chance to talk to talented young actress and star Poppy Drayton, who plays elven princess Amberle Elessedil. The discussion revolved around ears, traveling and the most important meal of the day: breakfast.

I know you’re probably crazy busy, so thanks for taking the time.

It’s kind of calm for the moment actually. You’ve got me in a lovely moment of calm.

Ooh, well I’ll disrupt it with the hardest question of all. To start your day off, do you go with French toast, waffles or pancakes?

Ooh, oh my god. It’s gotta be pancakes. Every time. Without a shadow of the doubt.

Do you do chocolate chips or anything, or just plain pancakes?

A bit of maple syrup and whipped cream. No chocolate chips; you don’t want to get chocolate involved with a pancake, I don’t think. I’m sure lots of people would and they’d be extremely happy with their breakfast. To each their own, I guess.

You’ll get there someday.

I’ll graduate to chocolate pancakes.

What was your relationship to Terry Brooks’ book series before the show?

I wasn’t aware of his books before I started, but as soon as I got the job, I launched myself into the wonderful world he’s created, and listened to the audiobooks and read the books and completely immersed myself in it. It was such a joy. To do all that prep and come to set and see it all come to life was so, so exhilarating. Like a dream.

You get to play an elf! What’s that like?

It’s so much fun. I’d never done any fantasy before, but have fallen in love with it. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to put elf ears on every morning and pretend to be an elven princess? How could you not want to do that? It’s so magical and precious and exciting and creative and it’s wonderful. I think everyone needs a bit more magic in their day to day lives, so if we can help provide that, then I think we’ve done our job.

Do you keep the ears on after work?

I thought about bring them out on a Friday night to see how they’d go down at the clubs. But I never did unfortunately. Next time.

If you could have any ability from your character in your everyday life, what would it be?

Probably the ability to sword fight really well. Which I know would come in handy. I live in London, so you need to be as savvy with your self-defense as you can possibly be. Not that I would ever—oh my god, that sounds awful. It sounds like I want to cause people harm. I don’t want to cause anyone harm. It’d just be purely for self-defense. A lot of parrying and blocking, not attacking. And I stress that, not attacking.

A lot of sword-fighting opportunities in London then?

Yeah, definitely. Honestly.

Did you have a favorite book series growing up?

Gosh, I don’t know. I was one of those kids who was always out scraping my knees on stuff, climbing trees, and doing silly things. I didn’t get into books until much later.

Nature was your literature. What’s the most exciting thing about being a part of the show?

It’s hard to choose one thing, but for me it was getting the chance to work with people who helped visually create The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, who are experts in their field, and to feel that creativity ignited within the whole team and see everyone busying themselves away on their respective creative fields. It was really exciting to feel a part of this massive, massive machine and everyone was there trying to create this visual world for us, for everyone. That was probably the most inspiring part for me.

You guys shot the show in New Zealand, so you were where it all went down.

Yeah, it’s the most gorgeous country. Have you been?

I actually haven’t. It’s on the list.

Definitely bump it up a few places on the list. It’s the most incredible country. You feel like you’re walking around on a green screen everywhere you look. And they have everything. It’s stunning.

So you’ve knocked New Zealand off your list. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Right now it would probably be Japan.

I think that’s mine as well.

Oh, really? It’s a good one. We’ll go there together.

Sounds good. What’s one thing that will surprise people about the show?

There’s so many.

Say a bunch then!

This show has something catered to everyone: it has magic, adventure, unrequited love, love triangles, and action…the list goes on and on. It’s just a feast of excitement. I hope that people watch and enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed making it.

We’ll all find out tonight at 10/9c on MTV.

[All images courtesy of MTV]

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