The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
Die Chroniken von Narnia - Prinz Kaspian von Narnia
Interview mit Anna Popplewell and Skandar Keynes
Anna Popplewell & Skandar Keynes
Anna Popplewell made her professional acting debut 1998 and she appeared in feature films as Mansfield Park and The little Vampire afterwards. Prior to her role in Narnia 1 the 19-year-old beauty appeared in Peter Webber's globally acclaimed drama Girl with a Pearl Earring. Born and raised in London she is the daugther of a barrister father and doctor mother. Skandar Keynes is a 16-year-old actor who first appeared at the age of nine in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of "Macbeth" for TV.
OutNow.CH (ON): Where do you see differences between the first and the seocnd film?
Anna Popplewell (AP): There’s more going on, there are more characters, there’s more action and it’s funnier.
ON: And personally? Did it feel different?
AP: It was a bigger film set. And I was working more hours as I turned 18 now.
ON: What about the evolution of your characters?
Skandar Keynes (SK): My character didn’t develop that much. It was a step by step thing. And it was only a time span of seven months, which is not so overwhelming.
ON: Did you miss each other in the meantime?
AP: We actually live two roads away from each other in London
ON: So did you want to get away?
AP: No! (laughing)
ON: How was the first time you had to work together?
AP: You make friends very quickly in extraordinary situations. We spend months and months together, so it was nice coming back to the community.
ON: The shooting of Narnia, how long did it take?
SK: Six and a half months, and the pause between the two movies was nearly two years
ON: And now you’re going to be separated? Definitely?
SK: I’m going to miss all these people, definitively, but, we will live. We keep seeing each other around and around.
ON: Do you feel like siblings then?
AP: Oh I guess that’s what everybody wants to say, it sounds cheesy but it’s true, we feel like a family. It’s gotten to the stage where Skandar not only knows how to make me laugh but also when to leave me alone, we’re tolerating each other’s flaws and qualities.
ON: How was getting back to normal life?
SK: It feels like two different lives, publicity and totally forgetting school and then having to go back there, but in the end it was all fine. I had three days between the finishing of the second film and going back to school
ON: Which film did you like better?
SK: My character is a lot more interesting in the first film, not that he’s boring in this one, but I loved what he had to do in the first. Now it was more of an “everyone is going through it together, supporting each other” thing
AP: and there was more physical stuff this time
ON: How difficult was it, imagining all the CGI-effects? When everyone was running around in green dresses?
SK: We got used to it pretty soon. It was quite normal that lots of people we wearing green dressparts around the set.
ON: Did you have to train new skills?
AP: Yeah, luckily there are these amazing visual effects, but yeah I did train up. We had an amazing stunt coordinator with Allan Poppleten, that and the coordinating of the boys’ sword scenes and all, it was good fun actually, we really enjoyed it.
SK: We had a great time, and I learned some sword fighting, especially fighting with two swords this time.
ON: It sounds easy, I mean, just to learn it, but it must be hard, how long does it take?
SK: I wouldn’t even be able to say that, because the practising is spread out over such a long time and mixed with the other activities we’re doing, we we’re really lucky cause we worked with a very good team, and we had some experience from the first film.
AP: Actually the horse riding was much more difficult, cause you could concentrate on only a few moves at the same time during the fighting scenes, but, if you can’t ride a horse, it only takes one shot for you to fall off, so you have to work on that.
ON: I read the book and I don’t recall any love interest, kiss between Susan and Caspian.
AP: Me neither, no that’s something that really isn’t in the book. It’s very subtle though, a series of long glances… and Ben is worth a love interest. We knew each other since five months and suddenly we were told that we’re going to do a kiss, so we were like, ok, but it was fine in the end…
ON: But how did you train a first time kiss on screen?
AP: Oh there were many hours, no, I don’t know, it’s like any other piece of acting, you just kind of act it. We were on a platform with 300 people around and I’m not much of a friend of public display of affection but there we had like the most public display of affection that you could possibly get.
ON: Really intimate
AP: Yeah really intimate, yeah (laughing)
ON: How was shooting in Prague, and how long did you stay here?
AP: We were kind off and on for a while, between here and Ústí, we also went to Poland and Slovenia, but we were based in Prague, so an on and off for 4 months, it was great, I actually liked it, although I didn’t get any of the language.
ON: Is there anything else that impressed you about the town? Anything that you would recommend us to do?
AP: There’s an amazing garden near Kampapark, we loved to just sit in there and read books.
ON: Who is the one who accompanies you? To the shooting trips and so on?
SK: My mum, cause I’m still a minor and my family visited
AP: I had a few people around during the first movie, but I was alone this time, because now I’m 18. But the nice thing this time was that we were shooting in Europe and that was much closer to home so we had friends and family who visited and we could get back and forth a bit.
ON: What’s the thing you miss most about your normal life?
AP: Subway
SK: Yeah Subway, it tastes different in Prague (laughing)
ON: Why Subway?
SK: Why not Subway? (laughing) I could finally get my advertising deal with them
AP: It’s sort of like when you go on holiday, you miss the random little things like your news paper, or fish and chips, my grandma’s cooked meals and my friends or walking through this and that street, just bits and pieces really. But I love the travelling element of what we do.
SK: We weren’t crying every night.
AP: Especially because you’re staying with a 500 Person crew, so you have this community ready made for you, living in houses next to each other and so on.
ON: Did you read Lewis’ books before you started shooting in order to get into his world? Cause he’s a tremendous writer.
SK: We didn’t actually read the books but six months of pretending to be in Narnia was enough to make it right this time. We knew what to do and what to expect. But then again, everything is different in this film so we couldn’t take everything for granted cause a lot of time has passed in Narnia in the meantime. A new structure and so on, so we had to dive into the world again on the set.
ON: What about the messages behind Lewis’ books?
SK: Well if he wants to tell us that Christianity is great, that’s fine, but it doesn’t concern me.
AP: I mean, Lewis is a great writer, and one of the nice things about his works is, that it is so classical for many people. So when I read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, I mean, I must have been seven, I didn’t read it in the context of Christianity but some people might and that’s exactly what we try to keep in the films, meaning that if you don’t want to see the Christian message or if you’re not aware of it then you won’t come across but if you’re looking for it then it’s still there… I’m finding myself in a C.S.Lewis world at the moment cause I’m studying at Oxford University and I’m actually studying at the College where Lewis taught for over 20 years.
ON: What’s your field of studies?
AP: I’m studying literature, which he taught
ON: So do you want to keep studying or do you want to keep acting? Cause there’s probably no time for both?
AP: No I wanna keep going. My university courses are three years long and I just finished my first year and I got four months off this summer so I’m trying to sort things out. I mean, I wanted to go to university for myself so even if I want to act, that’s not something that will go away for the next two years. I’m just gonna take time to do my degree now.
ON: Skandar, will you stick with acting?
SK: I don’t know, if there’s another film to go, let’s see what happens.
ON: Is there anything alternative? Something that might interest you?
SK: I’ve been thinking about medicine, personally. I’m doing some biology and chemistry on a level next year so yeah.
ON: This film is also a lot about fighting and killing. We always discuss, is that good for children, isn’t that too much violence or are they used to violence through fairytales? So what’s your point of view? What’s your attitude?
AP: I think action is a much better way than violence, because the order in which Narnia is edited is to cross out a lot of violence. It’s still kind of implied, but you don’t see a head being cut off, you see a helmet falling off and so on and I think that’s something they were very careful for. We know that this film is for a family audience. But we wanted to make it very exiting and pushing in terms of what we did with the action and what we did with the fighting.
ON: Yet it is about killing and also being effective in killing
AP: Sure, yeah
SK: But it’s not as if there are people rolling around on the floor screaming so that little kids would be getting nightmares.
ON: But still, it’s about death, and in your eyes, is that an appropriate topic for kids? I mean you’re mainly shooting for kids…
AP: I think the amount of action in this movie is completely appropriate for kids. I mean some parents ban their six year old boys from having toy bows and arrows, but six year old boys will make bows and arrows themselves. The families who don’t want their children to be exposed to any fight scenes or action, well they will know that it is contained in this from the poster and won’t take their kids to see it. So I’m hoping that there won’t be any mothers protesting and exploiting, but I think the amount of action is meant to be exciting, not upsetting.
ON: What movies do you watch? For fun?
SK: Oh whatever, I like comedy, action, drama. I couldn’t give you anything specific, I have a DVD collection of about 300 DVDs.
ON: So how are you looking forward to being in Narnia 3, Skander?
SK: Yeah I do, although I don’t know what to expect. I’ll see what happens. In the first film, it was all unexpected, and in this one we kind of thought we knew what we were going in for and then we had an all new experience so I’m not even going to start predicting what the new one’s gonna be like.
