It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Freddy Carter as Kaz. The actor, who has proven to have a wide range in his skill thanks to his appearances in Free Rein and Pennyworth, knew he wanted to play the leader of the Crow Club from the moment that he read about him in the pages of Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows.

“The certain point was about three sentences into the book where I was already getting hooked,” Freddy told Seventeen. “I actually parked the books during the audition process.”

Like so many who have already driven deep into the book series, Freddy knew of the great big world of the Grishaverse and what a key role Kaz would play in it, especially with how much of natural leader Kaz is.

“The thing that I love about him is when he’s two steps ahead of everyone else and you think he isn’t. What (creator and showrunner) Eric Heisserer and his writing team have done really well is captured that side of him. It makes you go, ‘Why is he doing that? That’s not going to work.’ And then he’s always got an ace up his sleeve,” he said. “Which I would love to be like that. I’m always two steps behind everyone.”

Despite what he says, the actor also had an ace up his own sleeve when bringing the character to life: Leigh Bardugo. While having the author who created the world on set to talk to them was something that was available to all the actors, there’s a special real life connection not seen in the other characters. The author based Kaz’s right leg on her own experience with osteonecrosis, which causes her to use a cane just like Kaz.

“I certainly felt a big responsibility of having lots of conversations with her when she spoke about the importance of that, because of her condition and Kaz’s injury. I think we had a really useful conversation where she spoke about how she saw people on screen with canes and it was always the villain,” Freddy recalled. “It was always the sort of Bond villain twirling them around. But Kaz is not a villain. He may be an antihero, but he’s definitely not a villain. She really wanted that to come across.”

Freddy noted that “the cane was something that Kaz loved about himself,” when talking about the character. In many instances in fiction and real life, walking around with a cane can be seen as a sign of weakness, furthering the notion that having any sort of disability keeps you from being your so-called best self. But as Freddy quickly points out “it was something that actually made him stronger.”

“It added to the myth around him that people whispered about in Ketterdam. It’s something that he’s incredibly proud of and would never shy away from. It doesn’t stop him doing anything. He fully embraces it about himself,” he said. “Leigh wanted someone to represent that side of her personality on screen: someone who was totally unashamed and, in fact, loved their cane.”

As the leader of the Crows, Kaz starts the series on a brand new journey with the rest of the trio as they head off on an adventure never before seen due to the time that Shadow and Bone takes place in. Freddy knew the importance of bringing that relationship to life, especially as Kaz is slowly figuring it out himself in the series.

“We all just loved the books and wanted to make this show as good as it possibly could be. That involved a lot of conversation, but also a lot of rehearsal and playing around with stuff to try and figure out those dynamics,” he said. “The Crows stuff, for me especially, sort of lives and dies on that dynamic of the three of them. They’re almost like siblings sort of bickering sometimes, but then they have a lot of love and trust for each other. And then sometimes they’re sort of cutthroat and ruthless.”

Out on their own as a trio, Kaz also grows from club owner to mastermind. While the group already have an established relationship in the books, this was a brand new starting point.

“He learns that he needs these people around him. At the start, he sort of keeps them close by, but he doesn’t know why. Because Jesper is a bit annoying and he has these feelings for Inej that he doesn’t particularly know how to articulate or do anything about. He views them more as a hindrance than anything, but he still keeps them around,” Freddy reveals. “By the end of the season, he’s slowly admitting to himself that this is his found family and he needs them just as much as they need him. That was so beautiful.”