The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
Die Chroniken von Narnia - Prinz Kaspian von Narnia
Interview with Andrew Adamson
Andrew Adamson
Adamson's directorial debut with Shrek made history winning the first Academy Award® ever presented for Best Animated Picture. Three years later, he followed up that incredible success with the triumphant sequel, Shrek 2, a film he both directed and co-wrote the screenplay for. This film went on to become the highest-earning animated feature film to date in Hollywood. Following he directed his first live-action feature Narnia 1, before he finally decided to take the director's seat for Narnia 2.
OutNow.CH (ON): So you decided to leave Narnia forever?
Andrew Adamson: No not forever, I’ll visit. But it’s definitively time to do some other things. It will bee hard to say goodbye, really emotional but I will see them around, the actors, the producer. The next one will have some shooting in New Zealand which is where I will be so I will see them around.
ON: The casting of Ben Barnes, I heard there was a lot of time pressure?
AA: Well I used a lot of time. It was the same as last time, I spend a long time looking ‘cause I had to find four kids and this time Ben had to fit in with these kids. I was looking all over the world and didn’t want to leave any stone unturned and I was waiting for this kind of feeling. End then when I saw him in History Boys on stage that was it, it took long but we were rewarded. There were a few people lined up, Ben came in right at that point and rose above those people.
ON: How many kids have you seen?
AA: I met about 15 but I had seen hundreds…
ON: You have two Italian guys, a sort of Mafia like Scorseses, also Francesco told me that you didn’t kill him in the end because you liked him so much?
AA: That’s actually true because he told me that every movie he had done together with Sergio, he slashed him. He came to me and said how can you kill me? I’m a good guy, I’ve done some bad things but I only do them because I was told to do them. That’s one of the privileges as a director that I could decide about it. And it was true, that was the character Peter killed before the battle but we all liked the character too much to let him go like that. It’s more interesting this way because we have the bad guy who realizes that he was following a bad regime and makes the transition in the end. But did he tell you how much he regretted that decision? Because he had another movie to go on to but we couldn’t let him go because there were scenes left to be shot.
ON: What’s interesting is that your villains have a great deal of ambiguity. They are 3-dimensional and in the very end we sort of like them but we don’t understand it. They keep the ambiguity ‘til the end, how do you work with this aspect’
AA: The villain is one of the most important characters in the story and if you have a one-dimensional villain I think you have a one-dimensional story. The fortune in this movie is that there are 3 villains that interplay. And you want to find out why they’re doing what they’re doing. And I think that most villains have to believe what they are doing to be believable. And the fact that this evil is human-based gives you the chance of more politics which is also in the book. It makes their story just as interesting as the heroes’ story.
ON: What’s going to happen to you know? Will you go on a vacation? Get a life?
AA: Get a life yeah. I’m actually in the process of moving back to New Zealand and it’s a long process. But I definitively haven’t lined up another project, much to my agent’s dismay. I keep everything away and I haven’t been reading anything so that I can get a clear head.
ON: For a few weeks?
AA: No, for at least a year. I have a house in New Zealand so we’re renovating it and there’s plenty of stuff to do.
ON: How difficult will it be for you. You made the first movie, then watched the franchise, then made another one and then you will go to the theatre and watch the third?
AA: It was interesting with Shrek, because there also I was very involved, I wrote the story and then as I got involved with this production I had to step further and further back and I have to say I didn’t agree with all decisions but in some cases you just have to say ok this is different, in some you think that’s better and in others you think that’s worse but you just have to watch the film without the experience you have. Shrek the Third for me was great because it was finally funny! In the other two it was me who wrote the jokes, read them hundreds of times but this time I finally got surprised.
ON: Do you think then, that you will be completely able to be detached from the next Narnia shootings or will you be looking at things if they are right or wrong?
AA: You know I want to be completely detached, and I’ll definitively go and visit cause I like all the people too much and it’s the same crew and cast so I want to spend some time there. The challenge will be to keep my mouth shut, especially towards Michael Apted, cause he will do it differently, it’s his film.
ON: How difficult is it for a "mother" to escape their children?
AA: I don’t know there are still some things that we need to work out, so far with Michael it’s been good. He’s good, we figured out a way and he’s very respectful towards my stand, he knows that I have sort of created this world and that I want to protect it. On the other hand I wouldn’t do my job as a producer if I was just trying to overrule everything. It’s a balancing thing.
ON: So does a director have to put a signature on his work?
AA: I think he has to. The interesting thing here is that the books are very different. The next one takes place at sea and is discovering islands so visually it’s very different, it’s a different story, it has got different characters coming in. So even if I would direct it, it would be a different story. I think that gives Michael more freedom than if it was Harry Potter where it’s always the same environment. The kids are getting older, but apart from that there’s not much of a change.
ON: When will this job be really finished for you, after the last premiere, after the last screening?
AA: At the end of July, at the premiere in Italy. I promised Francesco if there was a premiere in Rome I would come, but I didn’t realize it was so late. So at the same time I will be moving back to New Zealand
ON: What is for you the challenge of modernity? You’ve been in fantasy for 11 years, do you feel like doing something different?
AA: I would love to do something with just regular clothes. I really love the fantasy, the fact that you’re creating every element, in animation everything is deliberate, nothing is for free, and when you get into life action you get things from the environment, you get accidents and things for free you know, when a feet hits the ground there’s dust, but still in fantasy everything is designed. We built the castle, all the clothing is made you don’t just go and buy stuff from the shops. So a portion of your thinking just goes into design which is great but I’d like to do something that is less defined, that has more freedom. What I learned is that a film is a process, it evolves during the writing but in a film like this you’re really designing every element but I would love to do something now where the film is dictating a bit more
ON: Are you scared of this new project?
AA: I’m scared of every new project and if I’m not scared then I’m probably doing the wrong thing. If you want to grow as a filmmaker I think you have to keep being scared... Cause if you have a certain amount of success you always think can the next film keep up with that and so on.
ON: I think it’s gonna be an interesting process because you have been a pioneer at this job, you became an authority and then you will be adapting in a new genre again.
AA: If you want to grow you have to try these things. You know you have to ask a caterpillar to ask a butterfly how it became a butterfly, I’m sure it’s painful. I came from movies with a very low budget to the next ones who have a small budget and so on, there’s a freedom to that but there’s also a certain dictate you know I can’t have everything I want and need and you are working with different limitations which is interesting, but it may be terrible.
ON: Did you have to interact a lot with the son of C.S.Lewis? How much did you feel constrained?
AA: Not at all. Certainly he has a point of view about certain things we disagreed on but not too many. He’s very proud of the films and very happy with them. The only thing we ever really got into a discussion about was the strength of the female characters. As in the books, I found, the girls are treated as weak characters, Lucy maybe not so much but Susan definitively. And I didn’t want to write her as a weak character.
ON: Do you feel the pressure to challenge yourself again?
AA: Well the question is, what is the challenge? And I think the enemy of the filmmaker is the pressure to succeed at box office. Because then you’re just trying to make for an audience and you’re making a product instead of following a personal creativity. That’s part of the reason why I’m moving away from doing this kind of films for a while. I need to make a film for me now, something personal, or political or a story that means something and whatever that is, that it is not about how many people will go and see it.
ON: What attracts you towards movies?
AA: When I was groing up I was quite good at a lot of different things but not really very good at anything, I played music but not that well, I draw but not specially well, the same about photography, directing I just sort of stumbled into and I realized that I’m okay at it, the combination of all of these things works for me and I get to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and I can keep interest in all the different things.
What I also like is that every job is a reinvention, you get to talk with people and you get to know things that you would never run into in your normal life. Also I’ve been to a few of the world’s most amazing locations. It’s the constant change that I really love.
ON: What are you really proud of?
AA: Most proud of in these films? Of the kids. It sounds corny but we did form a family. We took four kids from different areas of the UK, shipped them off to New Zealand in a month, went to very remote places and they kind of bonded as a family with me as a sort of father. And now I feel like a father, when Georgie send to me a CD of the music she’s doing I felt like a proud dad. They’ve all done pretty well and I’m proud of what they achieved in this film, as actors, but I’m also proud of what they achieved off-screen. Skandar is thinking about studying medicine, Anna is at Oxford studying literature, I mean, they have all achieved so much.
ON: How about your Oscar from Shrek?
AA: That’s all the industry. I mean it’s nice to be acknowledged, but it’s just another score category. It’s nice that people appreciate what you’re doing but they do that when they go to see it anyway. So it’s really about the relationships, and one thing I’m proud of is the fact that people want to work with me again. I like it to be fun.
ON: How important is humour in your life? And in movie making?
AA: I think it is important in my life, it’s a diffuser, I use it a lot on set when everything gets tense. Within the film it’s different, there humour can be cutting, it can be political, a social commentary or a stress relieve. Like it is the case in this film, because there is a lot of tension and you have to be careful especially with the young audience not the stay in an intensive moment for too long because that can be traumatic.
ON: I can feel your passion for movies. Now this year off, I can’t imagine that, will it be paradise or torture?
AA: No, it’s gonna be torture for a while, but I will get through that. You know my agent says the same thing, he doesn’t think that I can do it but he doesn’t realize how lazy I am. It will take some adjustment at the end of the film but my wife is used to it. It’s like something’s wrong with me or if I’m losing my mind, because from this being the centre of the world and from everything is so important you’re suddenly gone, and everybody is gone. I’ll just go trough this manic-depressive thing.
ON: What made you decide to become a filmmaker?
AA: I didn’t really decide. Seriously, it was just a series of accidents. Certainly there were movies that had an impact on me but I never thought that I was going to be a filmmaker. First I wanted to be a mechanic, then I decided to study architecture but I missed the enrolment, so I was just looking for something to do in the mean time. That’s how I got into computing and then it kind of went from there. I worked on commercials, moved to the US and started working on computer animated films.
ON: You were born in New Zealand but you were also raised in Portland, what did you do there and how far did it influence you as a person?
AA: It were my most important years because I’ve been there from 11 ‘til I was 18. It’s the place that I most called home, I connected to it. But it has changed so much. And when I was doing Narnia where the Pevensies go back to Narnia but everything is so different suddenly, I could relate to that because it was the same for me and Portland. I couldn’t have the same kind of freedom there anymore, there’s a lot of violence and a great many things are dangerous. It is that sense of the loss of childhood that I found also in the book. You know I had a very free upbringing, one that was very uncontrolled, so it was a special time.
ON: How do you see the future of computer animation?
AA: It is stagnating a little bit, because once we got where we are now the question is, where do we go? And then it becomes all about stories. There’s always a period in filmmaking where a new technology comes out and for a while there are films that are purely based on that technology and there’s the point where everyone looses interest in that technology and the stories are back in the centre of interest. And with computer animation it’s just getting faster and more efficient so the costs will come down at some point but that’s about it.
ON: What about 3D?
AA: It’s interesting, I’m looking forward to how it all will work out. There are a lot of big, large films that will be released in 3D and I’m intrigued to see just how much it becomes a gimmick. Obviously the investors and exhibitors are very interested about it because it gives you a unique experience that you can’t have in home cinemas, so if it works, it will mean that more people will be going to theatres. And there won’t be piracy.
ON: So would you be interested in directing a 3D movie?
AA: Well I actually looked into making this film 3D, but with the time period we got to release it there was no way to actually do it. There are challenges in shooting and the visual effects in 3D are even more challenging. It’s complicated and very hand-intensive to do. And also, the most important should stay the story, so the question is in which extend people will start looking around instead of following what’s going on, and they might miss the point. The technique shouldn’t be distracting.
