All in the Narnia family
Jamie Portman, Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, May 09NEW YORK - William Moseley and Anna Popplewell recently had their first look at Prince Caspian.
And like most everyone else in the packed cinema high above New York's 42nd Street, they were left excited and often incredulous by how their performances as the two heroic Pevensie children - waging battle against the forces of evil - achieved such a powerful reality on the big screen.
But the experience was also bittersweet for two teenagers who have devoted a large chunk of their adolescence to the first two films in author C.S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles - first The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and now Prince Caspian, which opens May 16.
Prince Caspian brings to an end the Narnian adventures of Peter Pevensie (Moseley) and Susan Pevensie (Popplewell). Only bubbly Georgie Henley, who plays the youngest Pevensie child Lucy, and Skandar Keynes, who plays troubled third brother Edmund, will be on the set when the third film, The Voyage of The Dawn Treader, begins shooting later this year.
"Leaving was a very emotional moment,'' says 21-year-old Moseley.
"The last shot we did was a battle scene, and it was a really empowering moment. It was a beautiful sunset in the Czech Republic and we were all running down this hill - the whole cast - and it sort of immortalized our experience together. It embodies everything we'd done. So it was sad, but I felt that I was ready to move on at this point.''
In the new film, the four Pevensie youngsters are called back to a mythical land which, in Narnian time, has aged 1,300 years since their last visit and now suffers from the tyrannical rule of the evil Lord Miraz. They have been summoned to help Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) reclaim the throne which is rightfully his and to restore freedom for Narnia's creatures and magical talking animals. Before the film ends, there have been two ferocious battle sequences in which Popplewell's Susan is once more called upon to demonstrate her expertise with the bow and arrow and Peter engages in direct combat with Miraz.
Moseley said he was terrified as the house lights dimmed for his first glimpse of the finished film.
"It was very stupid of me because I'd eaten a huge salty burrito and I was feeling slightly sick. But from the first music, I was just locked in to this fantastic world, and I feel so fortunate to be a part of something that I think is a beautiful film. I was watching and thinking - how lucky can I be to get this part? It was also nice to see how well all our hard work had paid off.''
Twelve-year-old Georgie Henley, whose Lucy renews contact with the majestic lion, Aslan, who has been absent from Narnia for more than a thousand years, tried to approach the screening without high expectations because she feared being disappointed.
"And then we went in and I was gripped,'' she says chirpily. "You can't really tell what it's going to look like when it's filming. But after I saw it, I dreamt about it. I went to sleep and replayed the film all through my head.''
This time, Lucy was a lot more fun to portray. "I felt that I had grown and so she was a lot easier for me,'' she says.
"I wasn't involved in any of that last time around, and to be the only one on the battlefield in a skirt was interesting,'' she says.
Popplewell admits her emotions are mixed about the fact that she and Moseley won't be around for the next one, but she's also trying to be realistic.
"I had my first audition for this when I was 13 and now I'm 19, so it's been a big old chunk of my life, and anyway, I wouldn't want to play the same character seven times.''
But she will remember the last scene she did - a 15-foot jump off a cliff.
She will also remember the friendship that developed among the four young stars.
"The four of us were very close. And when you do extraordinary things - like fighting battles - you do bond very quickly.''
Or as Georgie puts it: I think the reason we have this chemistry and bond is that we've all grown up together. We spent years together. Crazy, isn't it?''
© CanWest News Service 2008
http://images.google.com.my/imgres?imgurl=http://media.canada.com/5bd68867-954f-4ea6-b165-b4b7a6c4840a/080508narnia_family.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html%3Fid%3Dbc64e7de-5f38-4467-a069-6eff2335bd33&h=300&w=300&sz=25&hl=en&start=356&tbnid=dilnI7Y6qcYP9M:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3DChronicles%2Bof%2BNarnia:%2BPrince%2BCaspian%26start%3D340%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN
No comments:
Post a Comment