His Dark Materials star Amir Wilson reunited with drama tutors

Teenage star of His Dark Materials Amir Wilson paid a visit to the theatre group that sparked his love for acting - and was reunited with the drama teachers who first spotted his talents.

The 18-year-old, who stars opposite Andrew Scott and James McAvoy in the BBC series, went home to Shrewsbury.

Amir began acting at eight and landed the role of baby Simba in hit West End show The Lion King three years later.

He said he still couldn't believe he'd made a career out of his passion.

"Every time I think about it, it's mad - me from Shrewsbury, I would never have imagined," he told the BBC.

As well as His Dark Materials, which streams its third and final series on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Sunday, Amir has starred in The Secret Garden with Colin Firth, Netflix's The Letter for the King and has recently came back from New York, meeting fans at Comicon with James McAvoy.

He took a break from his busy schedule to go back to the Shropshire town and meet James Broxton and Ross Wigley, the duo in charge of drama group Get Your Wigle On.

Amir said he remembered standing reluctantly outside a school hall in 2012 with his mum because his sister wanted to audition for the Wizard of Oz.

"I didn't come to audition, my sister did, but you encouraged me and stuck a little name tag on me," he told Mr Broxton.

Only a handful of children were expected to turn up but over 100 queued to sing their hearts out for a place in the cast.

After learning a box step or two, Amir was cast as a Munchkin and his love of the stage began.

The production was also the start of Mr Broxton and Mr Wigley's theatre group after they realised more needed to be done to give the town's children the training and opportunity to take their acting skills further.

Amir continued to perform in various productions with the group as well as partaking in summer workshops to improve his skills.

In 2015, Amir went to an open audition in London for the West End's production of The Lion King.

Out of 2,000 boys, he got the part of baby Simba, alongside two others.

"It all happened faster than I could even process it," Amir said.

Mr Broxton smiled as he reminisced months of little Amir singing 'I Just Can't Wait to Be King'.

"You were full of energy, a little bit cheeky, mischievous, you had a spark," Mr Broxton said remembering him as a youngster.

"I didn't have anywhere to put my energy and you helped me put it into something good," Amir said.

Amir was snapped up by a children's agency and his path to professional acting was quickly established. He moved to London with his family.

A part in stage show The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole followed, and his first television role was The Secret Garden with Colin Firth.

He was 15 when he successfully auditioned for the part of Will Parry in His Dark Materials, an adaptation of the fantasy novels by Philip Pullman.

The books have been published in more than 40 languages and have sold almost 17.5 million copies worldwide.

Amir had to balance filming with school work and would regularly work with a tutor on set so he was prepared for exams.

He said filming the latest series was a "big step up" for him due to the longer hours.

"In the film industry, before you're 16, you're only allowed five hours in front of a camera, and nine hours door-to-door...over 16 it's 12-hour days," Amir said.

"That was kind of the biggest challenge, I had to get used to conserving energy," he said.

The actor said he had also endured some emotionally-challenging performances.

"A stand-out scene for me is with Andrew Scott, I had a scene with him at the end of series two which was quite emotional and heavy," Amir said.

Scott, who plays Colonel John Parry, Will's father, worked with Amir for three days on the father-son scene.

He said Mr Scott was "really supportive", particularly because of the loss of Amir's own father Paul in May 2018.

"He was there for me throughout [the filming] he wrote me a nice letter about how well he thought I had done," he said.

In Shrewsbury, the young actors were thrilled to meet the homegrown star.

"It's nice to know that in this small town, we can all still have big opportunities," student Naomi said.

Amir came back to visit the theatre company's new studios and while he was there, gave the group some tips.

"It's awesome - we get to hear someone who has done theatre," said Patrick, a member of Get Your Wigle On who dreams of being a film star.

"He said moving from theatre to film, it's very different, because it's less animated," he added.

While Amir hasn't performed on stage since 2017, he said he would love to get back into theatre once again.

"It's been great to have Amir here, from Shrewsbury and doing so well with his career," Mr Broxton said.

"He's definitely put us on the map as well as Shrewsbury."

Still with a modest look on his face, Amir said: "When I started out acting here, I never imagined it'd be more than that."

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