Ben Barnes

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

An exciting element of Hollywood adapting a British book series like The Chronicles Of Narnia is the opportunity for talent of the region to be granted an unprecedented worldwide audience. One such British performer is Ben Barnes .

A theater actor, Barnes has crossed over to film with a role in the adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel Stardust. Now he has embarked in another film adaptation of a literary work, this time in the second book of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles Of Narnia series, Prince Caspian.

Being the now 26 year-old actor's first big role in a film, Ben first discussed how ecstatic he was when he learned he was going to play Prince Caspian.

'I can't even describe that evening,' Barnes recalls, 'I told them to ring me anytime they made their decision, just ring me either way, I got to know either way. And it was about 4:00AM London time and they called me and I just ran around the house screaming. I can't explain to you the thrill of doing the first lead Hollywood big film, particularly when it's something you grown up reading and you just don't get many moments like that.'

A lifelong fan of the Narnia book series, the actor says he was deeply excited about the prospect of being in a major Hollywood film adaptation of the series.

'I rented the first movie, when I was auditioning. And I thought, these are big, aren't they'' he says, 'Because I remember watching the BBC series and finding it just charming and lovely and I was eight and it's magic and it was real. And you watch it back and it's just a dwarf in a mouse suit! That's not an effect! That's not a mouse, that's a dude! I brought that up with Warwick [Davis] and it was him, in the original series.'

' I watched a few minutes of it when we were shooting this and you just think it's lost'you can't watch too much of it,' Ben continues, 'It's like when you re-watch old He-Man episodes. You just realize they are using the same frame over and over and over again and you don't want it to lose its magic, but kids today don't know how good they got.'

We asked Ben if there was a difference between acting in theater and acting on film and explained for us how he learned to maintain his level of skill on a film set.

'Yes, it's a different skill entirely,' he claims, 'On stage, you have 2 ' hours to go through a 2 ' hour journey and this is seven months to go through a 2 ' hour journey. So you kind of have to psyche yourself up for each individual moment. And I think the main enemy there is you can psyche yourself up too much for one particular moment, because it's the only moment you have to make sure on that day, so it's the most important thing in the world to you at that moment and that might not be that important a moment.'

'I think you have to remember that it's part of this whole thru line of moments that has to kind of ease off and you can't be too earnest and intense about it all the time,' Barnes adds, 'But I think that's probably something that takes years to get used to, the difference and being able to flip between the two, because most of my experience is on stage. But I'm really looking forward to doing more in the film world, seeing how I get on.'

However, Barnes said that the two worlds collided when his opportunity to do Prince Caspian had come after scoring a major break on the National Theatre production of The History Boys.

'It was a very difficult period for me actually, more difficult than I let on at the time, I think,' Ben recalls, 'It's always been my dream to work in the National Theatre, but when you're British and an actor and your ten years own and you're working in the National Theatre with your parents and that's the pinnacle of all acting really. And I got this job and I've been on tour with them for six months and I was in the West End and it was this amazing play by this British playwright Adam Bennett.'

'And then, it so happens that a few weeks before the end, I'm getting this opportunity to work on C.S. Lewis, another great British thing in a film context, which you haven't done huge on,' he adds, 'I've worked on two films before. And it was just unfortunate that both of those dreams came true in a year. That sounds like an awful, conceited thing to say, 'Woe is me. My two lifelong dreams have come true in the same year,' but it was a difficult time because I actually consider myself to be a loyal guide and it was tough for me to leave earlier than I wanted to. I hoped it would work out, but it didn't quite.'

One of the distinctive elements of The Chronicles Of Narnia book series is its very symbolic Christian messages. We asked Ben what felt was the kind of message the title character conveys to the audience.

'What I like about Caspian is that it's not too spoon-feedy,' he replies, 'There's not one particular moral message that comes to the fore, but there are good lessons in there. I mean, there's moments where he makes mistakes and you learn about his regret of those mistakes and that's when he has to trust other people around him in their ideas and learn to kind of concede. And then, there's this sort of overarching message that is believing in something that is greater than yourself and that nature is the thing that saves the day in the end.'

However, one aspect he's particularly fascinated by is its parallels to World War II, which had been going on prior to the books being written.

'When these books were written 50 years ago, that message had a much more allegorical message and now it's something that looks really cool,' Barnes claims, 'But I think that's there if you choose to see it. I think the Miraz tambourine imagery is very strong. You got eagles, which is a very Nazi-esque kind of look to it, but it's only there if you look to see it. You got this faceless race with this ethnic accent and it's set during World War II.'

'Sergio [Castellito] would be the first one to tell you that he thought Miraz was a kind of Hitlerean figure,' he adds, 'You look at Caspian and his uncle has murdered his father and thinking whether vengeance is the best policy. Pop quiz, which Shakespeare play does this remind you of' So there's a lot of good sort of interesting moral messages about humility. There's a lot of different messages in there if you choose to see them and if you don't, then there's cool battle scenes.'

An element that makes Prince Caspian particularly different is its medieval-style battle sequences. We asked Barnes whether he felt doing the battle scenes was more work or play for him.

'Half and half,' he replies, 'I really enjoyed choreographing them and rehearsing them and once you get to do them actually, it's 4:00AM and raining and you've got a pathetic tennis elbow and it can be quite grueling. But it's really satisfying when you have eight guys come at you and you're like, 'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and done.' And you can't lose because you're in the next movie.'

A particular difference between the book and the film version of Prince Caspian is how they display the relationship between Caspian and Susan Pevensie when she kisses him as they part ways.

'I was worried about it actually, if I'm being honest,' he says, 'Not doing it, that was fine, but I've done screen and stage kisses in almost everything I've done, so that part of it is fun. But I was actually worried about it because it wasn't in the book and as a Narnia fan, I knew it wasn't in the book. Actually, there's a much more massive scene between Caspian and Susan that's not in the movie. It will be in the deleted scenes, but it's not in the movie.'

'And I think that it helped a lot that it wasn't in the film,' Ben adds, 'I understand why they took it out. Actually, when I saw it, that's one of the things I was most relieved about, because I thought it was something that felt very real. There's glances between them and they go through this thing together and they don't really talk about anything because they're in the midst of doing other stuff. And they say goodbye and she walks away and she's thinking, 'You know what' I'm not coming back, why not'' And it felt like a real moment and that's thanks to Anna [Popplewell] and to Andrew.'

Ben says its moments like the kiss that allows Prince Caspian to progress in the overall Narnia saga.

'A kiss, that's like the easiest job in the world, but it did feel like something quite subtle and quite real,' Barnes says, 'I think I felt sort of the same in the relationship between Caspian and Peter, because I was worried about that being a bit kind of two rotting stags or whatever, but it does feel very borne out of the story and borne out of these situations that they find themselves in and the tragedy of sort of losing people in the night raid and stuff like that.'

'It sets them on edge and neither of them are quite sure where they fit in this world,' he countinues, 'One was a ruler and then came back and my character finds himself very ambivalent. He doesn't feel ready to be a king or a leader or a man yet really and yet he's forcing the situation. And I think I was pleased at the kind of subtlety and the sort of adult feel of the relationships.' A particularly interesting aspect about Prince Caspian is his rivalry with Peter. Barnes shared with us an incident with his co-star involving a practical joke gone hilariously wrong.

'My very first day on the actual set, I wasn't shooting,' he recalls, 'I was doing a costume and makeup test. William [Moseley] would tell you about this because he's kind of proud of it. I had hair extensions in, but they were trying a wig as well, because they weren't quite sure which to go for. So I had the hair extensions and the wig and this fake tan and this costume on for the first time and I spent two hours trying to get it right, so then you can't change it. I was standing there waiting for them to come back from set and I saw Andrew's car coming toward to check me up, so we could discuss it.'

'I was a little nervous,' Barnes continues, 'I had met him like twice before. Will comes up to me as a joke and pretends to throw orange juice at my face, but instead of pretending, he squeezes the thing and goes all over me. I start and I make it and he just runs. Will is really fast, so he is just gone. And I'm surrounded by these poor people who have spent hours dressing and making me up and doing the hair and surrounding me just mouths agape. And Will's ran off and Andrew's come up and I have to go get changed again and that was kind of embarrassing.'

We asked the actor in reply whether he had the chance to get even with his co-star.

'No, well, not in so many words, but there was continual banter,' Ben claims, 'Every time I would draw up my sword, I would be like, '(Sighs) How long is your sword, Will' As big as that'' And he'd be like, 'No, it's not.' So I had a bigger sword and I was one-up in there.'

Barnes claims though that wasn't the only practical joke he got during the movie's filming.

'One they really set me up on is one scene in the beginning where the Professor wakes me up and puts a hand on my mouth,' Ben recounts, 'Andrew comes in and goes, 'OK, that is good. We got it. We just want to change a little something with the lights. We just got to tune out this light, do exactly the same thing, Ben.' I was like, 'OK, I'll go back to sleep.''

'I've realized now you're kind of vulnerable in this position when you're asleep and your eyes are shut,' he adds, 'But I soon realized there were these lips and I thought, 'If that is the Professor, I'm going to be furious.' So I opened my eyes and I realized it was the director's assistant, who's quite hot. I'm sure it'll be on the extras.'

Ben says he was deeply enthusiastic when he finally got to see the finished film.

'I was just completely overwhelmed by the way it looked,' Barnes says, 'I wondered what [director] Andrew [Stanton's] been doing since last September and now I know. I wasn't picking. I just find it very hard to form any sort of thoughts about anything as I was watching it, but I might as well have been watching it on my own.'

'I was totally engaged with it,' he adds, 'I need to see it again in order to relax a little bit. I was feeling kind of sick before it because it had been such a long time. I'm like what did I do. Did I know how to act then''

With Barnes guaranteed to reprise his role as Prince Caspian in the third Narnia film The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, slated for release in May 2010, we took the opportunity to ask the actor if he's ready to sail a ship in the next entry.

'No,' Ben lightheartedly replies, 'But now that I definitely got the part, I can say whatever I want. (Calls out) I can't sail the ship'at all!'