Cara Delevingne Will Play a 'Faerish Refugee' Alongside Orlando Bloom in Amazon's 'Carnival Row' TV Show

It's proving to be an enchanting year for Cara Delevingne now that she's just taken on a fantasy role in her first-ever TV series, Amazon's Carnival Row. The project holds a lot of promise, not least because Delevingne will be working alongside co-star (and producer) Orlando Bloom.

Delevingne's had an action-packed year, wowing critics with a strong performance in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. But things look set to only get better!

Here's What We Know About Carnival Row

The concept of Carnival Row is a fascinating one, combining contemporary politics with steampunk fantasy. Mythical creatures fleeing a war-torn homeland have flooded into a neo-Victorian city where a febrile mood between the residents and these supernatural immigrants has begun to grow. It seems that Delevingne will be playing Vignette Stonemoss, a faerish refugee with dark secrets who must somehow navigate her hostile new home.

Carnival Row will use this simmering backdrop of racial tension to tell an enticing murder mystery that also stars Orlando Bloom. Playing a police inspector called Rycroft Philostrate, Bloom's character is called in to investigate the murder of another faerish refugee and will meet Delevingne along the way. Neither Bloom nor Delevingne have taken a starring role on TV before, so the project is sure to stir up interest when the pair finally appear alongside each other in the show's pilot episode.

25-year-old Cara Delevingne is proving to be one of Hollywood's hottest talents. She took a step back from her modeling career in 2012, and her acting skill has shone through in films such as Anna Karenina, Paper Towns, and Valerian. The talented actress is no stranger to fantastical roles either; Delevingne played the Enchantress in last year's Suicide Squad, although she seemed less than impressed at the way she was photoshopped by Warner.

Meanwhile, this year has continued to see Delevingne develop her musical career too. She was involved in putting together the superb soundtrack for Valerian, releasing the music video 'I Feel Everything' in support of the film. It's going to be interesting to see if Delevingne contributes something similar to Carnival Row, which is expected to air in 2019.

The Potential Of Fantastical Fiction

Carnival Row is a fascinating project, and clearly an attempt to use fantasy in order to express a very real, culturally relevant message. You don't have to be a news-hound to spot the real-world parallels, with the world currently struggling to cope with the greatest refugee crisis in human history. Like all the best fiction, Carnival Row attempts to create a fictional world that helps us understand our own.

That said, some critics are expressing real concern about Carnival Row at this point. There are a lot of concepts in play; a Steampunk world, fairy refugees, secret histories, murder mysteries, real-world parallels... It's going to take a tight, well-written script to effectively navigate the sheer number of concepts we can find in Carnival Row. It certainly helps that Amazon is recruiting some real top talent, though!

Personally, I think the idea has huge potential. With the right script, and a careful focus on world-building, Carnival Row could become a top-rate fantasy series when it airs in 2019, finally revealing what Cara Delevingne is truly capable of.

[Source: Variety]