The Crows are thick as thieves -- because that's exactly what they are. In Netflix's upcoming Shadow & Bone adaptation, Kaz Brekker, Jesper Fahey and Inej must fight to survive the mean streets of West Ravka, which is separated from the rest of the country by the dangerous Shadow Fold. When opportunity comes knocking, though, they must leave behind everything they know for an adventure that will test their friendship, their resolve and the sum of their ambitions.

Speaking to CBR, Shadow & Bone stars Freddy Carter (Kaz), Amita Suman (Inej) and Kit Young (Jesper) explained how their real-life friendship blossomed out of their shared love of the book series by Leigh Bardugo. They broke down how that made their character's dynamics "seamless" and why their roles "didn't feel like work at all." They also teased their character-inspired stunt work, shared some memories from their time at "Crows Camp" and more.

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CBR: If you'll excuse the pun, your characters are all thick as thieves right from the very beginning of this series. How did you establish that rapport with one another?

Freddy Carter: It certainly helps, as a starting point, that we will get on very well. We all arrived in Budapest at the same time together, and we had quite a long, three-week rehearsal period where we were doing stunt training every day together, and lots of rehearsals together. You know, we all loved the books, so we spent a lot of time geeking out about the books and our characters and the dynamics. So it didn't feel like work, but I think we did a lot of work towards figuring out that dynamic before we even stepped on set.

Kit Young: Yeah, exactly that! I think, because we all came alone to Budapest -- we didn't come with anyone that we knew -- so we immediately grouped together, the three of us, but also actually the six of us: Jessie [Mei Li], Archie [Renaux] and Ben [Barnes] as well. We will made such fast friends very, very quickly. We discussed the books, and we got settled in where we were living and went round to each other's places. So, by the time that we were actually on set working together, there were very few things to actually go over, because most of the connections were already established, and they were there! So it was really seamless.

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Amita Suman: Yeah, going off from what Freddy and Kit have said, I do remember feeling so nervous meeting my two friends here and knowing that I was going to be working with them for six months. But even though all of us are so different, we just gel so much and we had so many brunch days, and we hung out so much, and just working with them was such a pleasure. It didn't feel like work at all; it was just a celebration every single day.

Circling back to what Freddy said, what did that stunt process look like for you?

Suman: I never had previous stunt training at all. The only tiny bit that I did was back in drama school. So when I came onto the show, and knowing that my character was probably the most capable in terms of doing all the action sequences and looking as though she's held and worked with knives for years and years and years, it was a challenge for sure, but it was a challenge I really wanted to embrace and give it my all. When it came to doing the silks, it looks easy, but my god, it's really, really not. I couldn't hold myself up; I couldn't do anything. But by going to the gym and building my strength and stamina, by the time we came to do the scenes, I was able to hold down the routine, thanks to an amazing stunt team. They're great teachers. And obviously, part of that was my stunt double, as well.

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Young: Just to follow on from that, we all kind of had collective stunt training together, which is great. They just kit us up with our props, like immediately. It was like, "There you go! You have some knives; you have a cane; you have some guns. Let's go!" and we were immediately drafted into Crows Camp almost, where we were doing this stuff every day. What was quite funny was occasionally Amita is doing really adept things with knives and I'm standing there, trying to spin these guns, and Freddy's walking around with his cane, practicing his limp. So we were all at different stages, doing different things for a bit. I was also taken to the gun range, because I had to learn how to shoot properly, and then spin something that's loaded. So it was definitely a process, but hopefully people are really happy with what they see, because these characters, it's basically written: they're badasses.

Freddy, I imagine it looked a bit different for you.

Carter: It did. It did, but he gets into a fair share of scraps.

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Young: Oh, yeah!

Carter: Maybe not as graceful as the other two. What was really interesting for me was that the stunt team... All of the fights come from a place of character. They wanted our input. Rather than just taking on choreography, they wanted to know what kind of punch we thought they'd throw for this particular person, you know? It all came from a place of character and making the story as vivid as possible, which was really exciting.


A Netflix production from Shawn Levy's 21 Laps Entertainment, Eric Heisserer, Leigh Bardugo, Pouya Shahbazian and Lee Toland Krieger, Shadow and Bone stars Jessie Mei Li (Alina Starkov), Archie Renaux (Malyen Oretsev), Freddy Carter (Kaz Brekker), Amita Suman (Inej), Kit Young (Jesper Fahey), Ben Barnes (General Kirigan), Sujaya Dasgupta (Zoya Nazyalensky), Danielle Galligan (Nina Zenik), Daisy Head (Genya Safin), Simon Sears (Ivan), Calahan Skogman (Matthias Helvar), Zoë Wanamaker (Baghra), Kevin Eldon (The Apparat), Julian Kostov (Fedyor), Luke Pasqualino (David), Jasmine Blackborow (Marie), Gabrielle Brooks (Nadia). The series premieres April 23 on Netflix.

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