Voyage of discovery
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Voyage of discovery

Q: What is this story all about?

A: “The story is a voyage. What appealed to me about the kids’ journey was going to different islands in search of different things.  What did I think it was all about?   I was brought up in a Christian church. I think I am spiritual but I am not a Christian, and it seemed to me to be a film about spirituality and more generally about finding adulthood, shedding childhood and taking responsibility for what you do. That is what intrigued me. It is a very difficult book to adapt and it took a long time to get anywhere near doing it correctly because it is made up of incident after incident after incident. That is great if you are reading it to children at night—you read a chapter then the next chapter the following night.  But that does not work for a movie. A film has to have a spine and an energy, something that’s driving you from scene to scene, and that doesn’t exist in the book. So we really had to be imaginative, and frankly what we did was to steal a bit from what C.S. Lewis missed out between this book and ‘The Silver Chair.’ There is a whole element of the story that he didn’t bother to tell, and that was never dramatized so we took some of that story and dramatized it in THE DAWN TREADER.”

Q: What exactly did you dramatize?

A: “ Between this book and the next, Caspian’s lifetime has almost passed. He is a very old man, he has married the Star Girl of the Dawn Treader. They’ve had a son, and what happens in ‘The Silver Chair’ is that they discover there is a huge conspiracy in the underworld led by the White Witch to invade Narnia from the ground up, take Narnia over and use Caspian’s son as a kind of hostage. They want to reassure people in the country that nothing has really changed, whereas in fact it is the White Witch running it all. All that is a fait accompli in ‘The Silver Chair’ so we decided to take those elements:  the existence of the White Witch and the fact that there was a horrendous plot afoot that posed a serious threat to Narnia, although no one could quite define what it was. We made that the thrust of why they are on the journey with the Dawn Treader so it gives the film a purpose and momentum. Now we never see that world so we never give away anything that is revealed in the next movie, but we do sow the seeds that trouble is coming, and the trouble may last for generations to come.  I believe that is the motor to drive our film along, without losing the humor and the charm and the imaginative journey that they go through on THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER.  But beneath all that there is a reason for them making the voyage, which becomes clearer as the journey progresses.”

Q: There are a lot of technical challenges on this film, a lot of CGI (computer generated imagery). What was that like for you, creating a fantasy world?

A: “Well I am in my 60s and it is wonderful. I think I did the Bond film when I was 60. Anyway, for a man of my age to have the opportunity to learn these new things is just staggering good fortune. I learned a huge amount making Bond; I learned how to do action and how you can enhance action with CGI, but in this one there is even more to learn because you are creating a whole world. In Bond you are extending a contemporary world, creating a more heightened world. Here you are creating new environments and I am just like a child. But I have been surrounded with people who know what they are doing.  Some have done Narnia films before but each Narnia film is a different challenge.  It’s been a whole learning experience.”

Q: Can you talk about those new worlds in THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER?

A: “There are different kinds of worlds, some are surreal, some are absurdist, some are threatening. For me the challenge is that you’ve got to create a continuous tone. Whatever worlds these children and the crew of the Dawn Treader go into, they are encountering real people on a real journey, so you can’t let the film go haywire with bizarre surrealistic scenes. Nor can you make the film too violent or too cruel, you’ve got to create an even tone that doesn’t whizz about, because I think that would send the audience into whiplash, they would lose interest. Every beat of the film has to have an element of realism to it. You have to believe that people are in a real experience. So when they encounter the Dufflepuds or Golden People in ponds, it is part of their perception in a real world.  It is challenging because you cannot let the film run out of control and become so silly that you lose touch with any reality, or become so dark that you lose the optimism and magic of it all.”

Q: How did you achieve that balance?

A: “ We wanted to put Edmund, Lucy and Eustace into those worlds and to see it all from their point of view. On a technical level we shot a lot of handheld stuff.  I  wanted the film to feel like a real kids’ adventure that they would be able to relate to. Modern contemporary kids’ thrillers or video games put the child in the experience and I needed to do that with this film.”

Q:  Can you discuss the actors and performances?

A: “Will Poulter, who plays Eustace, is wonderful without being a smart ass, so casting him was easy; it was really a no-brainer. He had played the lead in a film already, THE SON OF RAMBOW, so I had seen that he could play a leading role. Of course this is a difficult part to cast anyway because he is the lead of the next film if they make the next one, so I knew I was not just casting for me but for the franchise in a sense. But once we met Will we knew he was Eustace. We continued testing people and meeting people for a long time but frankly, once we had seen Will . . . he was it. He has a terrific sense of humor; he also has a warmth to him and very accomplished. He’s just got it and knew right away what had to be done.”

Q: And the rest of your talented cast?

A: “They are great, and I am just very lucky. The older two who play Peter and Susan (William Moseley and Anna Popplewell) also came back for a scene. It is so heartwarming to see them all together. I just think Georgie , Skandar and Ben are terrific actors. They understand the world and are so much a part of it. They also respect the world; they know what is going on and they are all very accomplished actors. For me it has been a lot of fun. They can do anything I want them to do and they make great suggestions that I would never have thought of.”

Q: Can you discuss the overall theme of the film?

A: “It is about taking responsibilities for your actions, which is a very important thing when you are a teenager in the area of self-awareness—to know what can be done and what cannot be done, what your strengths and weaknesses are. It is about that period of self-knowledge. I think that is what this movie deals with. The characters all have temptations such as greed and jealousy that they are forced to acknowledge and do something about.”

Q: What do you specifically bring to this film with your wealth of experience?

A: “I like to get on with it. I like to have a lot of energy. I have a fear that when things take a long, long time and you are doing lots and lots of takes. Both people become bored, and I want to keep people’s energy up. I want a vitality to the film. I don’t want the film to sit down or go to sleep.  I just think the pace is important, and the pace I set makes people think more quickly, act more quickly  and do things more quickly.”

Q: How integral is the actual ship the Dawn Treader to the heart of this story and movie?  It is essentially a character isn’t it?

A: “Well it is Narnia. We don’t go to Narnia so the boat is Narnia. It is the mobile history of Narnia. So when you look at the detail on the boat there are all the iconic images from the previous films and references to the mythology of Narnia. You could say ‘Where are those beautiful landscapes we had in Narnia?’ But the boat is the beautiful landscape and has to carry the history of the country. That is why it has to be as exquisite as the location was in the other two movies.”

Q: How exciting does filmmaking continue to be for you?

A: “This has been fun but challenging because it’s a big job.  We are on the move all the time in terms of settings (not locations). It is a journey so you never get time to settle into a set. It is very tiring but it is fun.  I love my job. I just get terrified the work will run out—what am I going to do then? (laughs)”

Q: Would you consider another Narnia film?

A: “Yes but let’s just see what happens. It is great to do a big movie. It is also scary as hell because the expectations are so high. And of course this film will take more in its first day than a film like  AMAZING GRACE took in its whole life. The smaller films are all wonderful to do but it’s nice to know that there is going to be a big audience out there waiting for you.”

Q: What have people got to look forward to with THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER?

A: “We’ve tried to put as much humor into it as possible with the character of Eustace as well as it being a great adventure. People can empathize with the characters. The adventures they are going through are very varied. At its heart the film is about growing up, about Edmund and Lucy going towards adulthood and then realizing they have to move on rather than clinging onto Narnia and the childlike wonder of that. They move into an adult world and go back home to embrace that adult world. So I think it’s a totally universal story and it’s the emotional heart that I think is the most appealing part of it. I think for the Narnia fans this is one of the more beloved books because there’s a kind of warmth and magic about it.  And the film is fun because it’s just a great story.”

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