ANNA POPPLEWELL
I suppose I should be used to it by now, but the scale
has upped itself pretty-much proportionately going
into this film. It’s still a huge deal. Having another fantasy
race of people in the Telmarines, meant that we had
hundreds and hundreds of extras playing soldiers on
set. That meant bigger cameras and bigger depart-
ments and it just meant that everything was
upped in terms of the scale.
In the first movie, Susan took on a very
motherly role because the children had been
evacuated – she feels very responsible for
her siblings. In this film, as before, Peter
takes charge quite a lot and I think although
Susan, being quite a bossy person, would
love to take charge if she had the opportunity,
she has to put up with some of Peter’s
not-so-wise decisions.
I think one of the major developments in
this film is the fact that Peter and Susan
are told at the end of the movie that they’re
not coming back to Narnia. That’s obvious-
ly a really big deal and is a mark of the
fact that they’ve grown up and learnt a lot.
It was a weird and bittersweet moment
when we filmed that scene with Aslan
because it was pretty-much at the end of
filming. It really drove it home! I think
there’s a scene in Dawn Treader in which
Lucy talks about Susan and they could
do a flashback, but I’ve not been talking
to them about it at all and I’m not
attached to it yet. I think Will and I are
going to do a planned visit and storm in
and hijack the whole thing! Rewrite it!
When we met Ben Barnes, who’s playing Cas-
pian, we knew that he was going to be doing
the next one with Georgie and Skandar so we
felt kind of responsible to ensure he was a
nice guy who would look after them and
everything. But he’s really great and I think
those three will have a good time together.
It’s sad that we’re not going to be shooting the
next one but at the same time I felt at the end
of the last one that I was ready to move on and
do other things. CONTINUE TO PAGE TWO
WILLIAM MOSELEY
The first film was a children’s Narnia. This film is going
to be an adult Narnia, and I say that with every implic-
ation, as in we’re fighting adults this time, we’re not
fighting mythical creatures anymore. Even Tilda
Swinton as an actress is definitely a mythical creature!
We’ve got a whole army of humans to fight this time.
Narnia’s changed. It’s 1300 years later, it’s not pastoral
anymore, or idyllic. It’s dark and nasty and all the crea-
tures we once knew, who roamed the land freely, have
been pushed into the forest and the woods and forced to
live this closed lifestyle.
Peter has changed too. He used to be a very nice, considerate,
moral person. Very selfless. And this time he’s quite selfish and
he’s quite angry and frustrated and thinks he deserves more. The
film starts with this huge fight sequence where he’s just angry and
he’s lashing out because nobody respects him as a High King in
London – of course. He has to learn an important lesson of humility.
It’s also Peter and Susan’s last time in Narnia. To some deg-
ree we’re passing Narnia on to Caspian. It’s almost like
we’re passing the torch and going back to England
because we’ve learnt our lessons from Narnia. And it
does feel like I’m passing the torch on to Ben Barnes
too. It sounds weird and ridiculous, because I know
we’re just actors in a film, but when you put so
much of your heart into something you really do
want to pass it over and to have someone accept
it with respect and I really think Ben Barnes will
pull up trumps. And if he doesn’t then I think
Skandar will knock him into shape and get him
there!
This film is pretty epic, I’ve got to say. This one-
on-one fight I do with Miraz – I know I’m complete-
ly biased and don’t take my judgements as
told, but I really think it’s going to be one of
the best one-on-one fights anyone’s ever
seen on screen. We had a camera on a 360-
degree dolly and they had three cameras
pitched in. I was with the head stunt guy
because he wanted to do it with me.
We’re spinning around fighting, and
there are these three cameras filming
at 90 frames a second so it’s in slow
motion spinning all around and it
looks so cool! This huge battle-
field in the background. It’s
pretty epic.
The Chronicles of Narnia:
Prince Caspian is released
in the US on 16th May,
Australia on 5th June
and the UK on
26th June.
