SciFi.com Interviews Andrew, Ben, Peter, Georgie, William, and Anna!

Go behind the scenes with the cast and crew of the latest Narnia installment, Prince Caspian


By Tara DiLullo Bennett

With the massive success of Andrew Adamson's cinematic adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2005, it was really only a matter of time before the next novel in the beloved fantasy series would get its chance to shine on the big screen. Three years later, Adamson and almost the entire original creative team from the first movie are back with their interpretation of the much-less-read story of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

A year after the Pevensie children's inaugural adventure in Narnia and their unexpected return to 1940s wartime England, their former realm beckons them to return once more. Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) are all magically transported back to a Narnia that has now aged 1300 years. Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) the dwarf reveals to them that the land of Minotaur and fauns, dwarves and talking animals is but a pale shadow of itself, with the magic spirited out of most of the inhabitants that still exist. Narnia's whole existence is under threat of siege and extinction by the evil King Miraz of Telmarine and his massive army of humans. More mature and more resolved than ever to save their former home, the Pevensie children unite what is left of Narnia's creatures and, along with the help of the Telmarine outcast and ally Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), they align to fight once more.

Adamson's Prince Caspian is even more epic than the first film, with jaw-dropping sets, more impressive visual effects and a timeless story that revolves around the power of faith and redemption. SCI FI Weekly recently ventured to New York City to catch up with Adamson, Moseley, Popplewell, Henley, Dinklage and Barnes.

Andrew, with the original film successfully under your belt, was Prince Caspian easier to create?

Adamson: It should have been easier! You always think "I have done it before, so it will be easier," but because of that there is the natural tendency to put more challenges in front of you. Then there are the expectations that "the last film was this big, so the audience is going to expect at least that," and then it expands from there. It became logistically a very challenging film. There is a lot more action. We have a lot more extras, with the whole Telmarine army. There are a lot more locations, which was very deliberate, so all those things added up.

Unlike The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, you created a very different script structure for Prince Caspian compared to the book. Were you concerned fans would get upset?

Adamson: The first book was very cinematic, in an almost five-act structure that was quite linear. In this book a lot is actually told in retrospect by Trumpkin, who is telling the kids what happened after they left. And there are scenes like them following Aslan through the gorge in the book that don't work cinematically. We did have to come up with a very different structure, and getting the story and script right was the hardest part.

There always is concern about fans, although one of the Narnia Web site fans was [at the screening], and he was speechless with enthusiasm, so I take that as a good sign! And I actually read the book again on the plane on the way over here, because after you work on something for two and half years you can't remember what was there and what you made up. I was really pleased that in reading the book, even though the structure is very different, it felt like I was reading the same story. What I set out to do with both of these was "if this really happened and C.S. Lewis wrote a book for small children about the events and then I make a movie of the real event, I need to stick to the key points."

Do you prefer directing animated films or live-action films more?

Adamson: This is like doing both. You do the live-action part and then you have to do the animated part with all animated characters. It's largely like the difference between a sprint and a marathon. The intensity is the same, but the duration is different. In animation you get a lot more chances at things. You can refine over and over again. In live action, when you have 500 people looking over your shoulder you don't have as many opportunities to do things over. The nice thing about doing it combined is that you don't necessarily have to reshoot stuff; you can give lines to animated characters six months down the track. In both films, I repurposed scenes and added lines later on with animated characters that make the live-action parts work better.

How did you find Ben Barnes, who plays Caspian?

Adamson: The net was cast around the world. I wanted to make the Telmarines of Mediterranean descent, with the whole thing about them coming from pirates. I started casting in Italy, Spain, France and Central America. Ben came as a surprise when Gail sent us his tape. He got the nuance in the script in one of the scenes he decided to audition that I hadn't seen any of the other actors get. By this time it was very late in the game, as I was already prepping in New Zealand. I arranged for him to fly to L.A., and I met him there. He's charming, and he looked the part. I wanted someone who looked very different from William. He was a very accomplished young man who still looked like he was 16 years old.

Ben, what kind of man is Prince Caspian?

Barnes: Caspian is an earnest character. He's a bit of a lost soul. He hasn't been parented and has been brought up by someone [Miraz] who essentially doesn't care about him at all and is just waiting to have his own heir so he can get rid of him. That's not a very loving environment to be brought up in. The closest thing he has is his professor, and that was probably only a couple of years. He's an interesting character, and I'm excited to see how he develops. But in the next film [Voyage of the Dawn Treader], he won't suddenly become this macho, musing, quipping king.

How was it assimilating into this tight-knit clan of actors?

Barnes: When I got the part I got [The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe] DVD and watched all the DVD extras and listened to Georgie [Henley] say, "Oh, Will is like my brother, and Andrew [Adamson] is like the dad when my dad's not there, and it's all lovely." I just thought "Give me a bucket. I don't believe you." Then I walked into the production office on the first day and they were playing table tennis with each other and sitting on each other's laps and sharing ice cream. It was like something out of a Disney film ... boom, boom. [Laughs.] It really was like that, and it was a very family atmosphere on set.

Peter, did Warwick Davis [Nikabrik] give you any tips on how to act with the makeup for your character, Trumpkin?

Dinklage: Ah, Warwick is an old pro on these fantasy films. Even if you don't know it's Warwick, it's probably Warwick underneath a lot of makeup. I had done one film for Disney the year before, Underdog, where I was in some makeup but not anything like what he has done or what I did with this movie. It's a whole other level of craziness. I was in the makeup chair for three hours. But when you are complaining or you have a bad day and you are hot with the yak hair and everything, you just look at him, and he's such an old pro it makes you mellow out. Warwick had more makeup than I did. It's funny, because on a movie like this with the Narnians, you see people more in makeup than you see them out of makeup, so it was always almost a shock seeing him sometimes at the end of the day and he was 500 years younger!

Georgie, the Pevensie siblings have such a genuine rapport on screen. Why do you think that is?

Henley: I think the reason we have this bond is because in my family I am the youngest. I have two older sisters, so I am the baby. In Will's family, he is the big brother. It's like in all of our families we just swap in. I love it, because I have two sisters and no big brother. Having Skandar [Keynes] and Will around is like having two big brothers. Especially Will is always there if you want a cuddle on set, which is lovely because whenever you are feeling down, Will is always there and happy. Why we all have this chemistry and bond is because we've basically grown up together, almost. We've spent years together.

William, you really outdid yourself with the stunts and impressive fighting in the various battle scenes. Was it more fun this time around?

Moseley: Yeah. The physical aspect I completely immersed myself in and embraced. On the first one, the battle armor was quite rigid and I felt like I was a robot. In this one, they really freed it up and made it more agile for me so I could do these crazy stunts. I worked really hard on a one-to-one level with stunt coordinator Allan Poppleton. I was running eight miles every other day and working out in the gym for a couple hours on top of that. I was just thinking my body was in such good shape last year!

Anna, was this film easier to do that the first one?

Popplewell: It wasn't necessarily easier or harder, it was just different. This one was bigger. When you're dealing with a Telmarine army and a Narnia army, suddenly there are 300 extras training in one area and a huge prosthetics tent in another and you are catering for a thousand people. Even having experience with the huge scale of the first movie, I was surprised by how big everything was. I wasn't involved in any of battle stuff last time around, so to be the only one on the battlefield in a skirt is interesting. I made sure I did twice as much horse-riding training before I got to New Zealand as the boy, because I didn't want to get left behind. Of course, I pretended I had no training whatsoever, so I just looked like a seamless professional.

How was it adding new cast, like Ben Barnes and Peter Dinklage, to the mix?

Popplewell: Ben is really lovely. From the other perspective, because the four of us are so close, we were nervous about the new characters in the movie and who we were going to be spending this amount of time with. You want to have a good time. I was completely delighted when I met Ben and Peter. They are such fun people to be around, and they have amazing senses of humor.

At the end of Prince Caspian, Aslan tells Peter and Susan that they won't be returning to Narnia again—which means this is the last film where you will all be together. Was it hard saying goodbye?

Henley: It's weird, because I finished filming a bit earlier, as I wasn't in some of the battle. My last shot was one of the last scenes in the movie, when we are actually saying goodbye. It was quite hard for me. But I knew it wasn't goodbye forever. I did have a bit of a cry, but I wasn't that sad because I knew because we had grown up together. You can't break that bond as easily as just saying goodbye to someone.

Moseley: It was a really emotional moment, and it was the very last shot that we did. It was a battle scene where all the Narnians are running, and it was a really empowering moment. It sounds weird, but the sun was setting with this beautiful sunset in the Czech Republic, and the whole cast was running down the hill, and it just felt like we were bound for this very last moment, and it immortalized our experience together. It was sad, but it felt like I was ready to move on.

Popplewell: It's bittersweet, the fact that Will and I won't be involved next time. I had my first audition for this when I was 13, and I'm 19 now, so it's been a big chunk of my life. I don't want to play the same character seven times. I think people would probably get bored of it. I don't know if I could spend seven times seven months doing it, so it's been wonderful, but it will be nice to move on, too.