Daniel Solace’s true nature is the hot topic of the 1899 s2 predictions and they generally boil down to three possibilities:
1. Daniel is everything that he says he is at face value – Maura’s devoted husband
2. Daniel is a product of AI/Simulation, and therefore not a real person
3. Daniel is secretly Ciaran/in cahoots with more antagonistic forces at hand.
At this rate, we can parse out the writing, the editing, the symbolism surrounding Daniel to try decoding (heh) his mystery, but in my opinion the thing that will be the most revealing and crucial about what this secret of Daniel’s is, and Daniel’s true nature, is in Aneurin Barnard’s acting.
1899′s major plotline and momentum rests on Daniel’s shoulders because he is the character with, as of right now, the most knowledge/understanding of the world at play, with the most secrets directly tied to the plot, and the most overarching agency. Ni therefore has a lot of heavy lifting with the big picture storytelling of the sci-fi/mystery. He mentioned in interviews how precise and challenging it was to play a character with so many secrets and having to decide what to reveal, what to hold back, how that truth slowly progresses over time. When you play a character full of secrets, an actor’s performance is crucial, almost more so than the writing and the editing imo.
Because they have to maintain that fine line balance of secrecy and revelation, to reveal just enough that when the secret is revealed it makes sense, and if you were to ever rewatch the media and focus on the character you can see precisely how that secret manifests in acting choices. If you’re going to have a character carry a secret throughout a storyline and not reveal it until much later, the actor needs to know it. They have to be trusted to carry this character’s secret and infuse their choices, expressions, voice with that truth so that when that truth is later revealed, it is earned.
Aneurin is spectacular on this front, not only in what he has shown so far in 1899 with Daniel but I think most prolifically with his role in Dunkirk as Gibson. I rewatch Dunkirk and I always pay attention to him because with hindsight 20/20 I now pick up the heartbreaking acting choices that Ni made for Gibson before his climax. He was cast for the role of Daniel for a reason. If Daniel has even more secrets beyond the reveal of his relationship to Maura, and he knows these secrets, the best case scenario for storytelling is that Jantje and Bo have already directed Ni in this way, and told him exactly what his character is and knows.
The actor needs to know their character’s full story in order to portray their story in a rewarding, powerful way. And Aneurin has showed so much of his character’s hand re: Daniel’s love for Maura before the reveal. So if his character knows even more that he is holding back, then Aneurin is letting that play out in his acting choices right in this instance. That can be something huge. It can also be nothing at all–it can also be that the big secret of Daniel’s character is something Daniel himself isn’t aware of, and therefore possibly neither may Ni. Not yet, anyway.
Always pay attention to the actor. Especially when the mystery rides on their shoulders.
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