Anna Popplewell

Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Anna Popplewell has to be one of the most normal people to ever headline a massively-budgeted movie franchise. In 2005's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and now its sequel, Prince Caspian, she's played Susan Pevensie, one of the four Pevensie children introduced in C. S. Lewis's classic Chronicles of Narnia series. But despite the seven-month shooting schedule for each flick and then the month of nonstop press junkets, she seems startlingly down-to-earth.

"I don't think my friends really think of me as a movie star," Anna says. "The people I'm friendly with are very cool about it, and not particularly interested in it, really. I mean, I'm sure they'll see the film, but it's not like they're sitting around talking about it all the time. I mean, I don't walk down the street in London with huge sunglasses and a sign that says, 'Look at me, I was in Narnia.' I lead a pretty regular life."

Now nineteen years old, that life includes attending Oxford, where she studies English literature and stars in many student theater productions. "I should be writing an essay right now," she jokes. "No, I've sort of been doing bits and pieces [of acting] since I was about seven, so it's always been a routine for me, studying in the evenings or during lunch breaks or whenever I can. I've always been really determined about juggling the two, and I think if it's something that you want to do, you manage it.

"So while I'm in Oxford I'm doing a lot of student drama, and when I'm not I hope to do some stuff during the holidays, so I'm just going to see how it goes, and try to keep both up for as long as possible. I'm doing Spring Awakening in a couple of weeks ' not the musical version, because I just can't sing for toffee, but the play."

She can't "sing for toffee"' Add "hilariously British" to her list of disarming qualities.

Narnia readers might remember that Prince Caspian is the last book to feature all four Pevensie siblings. The next film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, will include the two youngest, Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley), but this is the last we'll see of Susan and eldest Peter (William Moseley).

"Will and I were both sad, our last days on set," Popplewell says. "It's been a big long journey, for both of us, purely for the amount of time that it's taken up, let alone what has happened. But, at the same time, I don't think I would gain a lot, or the audience would gain a lot, from me playing the same character seven times, for seven months each time. I'm sad to go, but at the same time I'm happy to move on. I finished shooting in September and I started Oxford in October, and I've just been reading and playing and doing plays and things like that ever since, and having a great time."

The night before we interviewed Popplewell was actually the first time she was able to see Prince Caspian in its completion. "I was very excited and nervous to see it," she says. "I need to watch it again so I can see it without my head going, 'Oh, this day we were here, and in that scene we were here...' and just watch it as a movie. But I was really satisfied."

Part of that satisfaction has to do with how Susan has grown over the course of the two films. "I think in the first film, Susan is not very likable, because she's the one saying, 'Well hold on, this doesn't make any sense,'" Popplewell says. "And I think a lot of people forget that if you're treating it at all realistically, then when you're plunged into the world of Narnia, someone is going to stand up and say, 'Well hang on a minute.' And she's still that way this time around, she's asking questions and posing problems, but I think she's a lot more human this time and people can see where she's coming from."

Helping in that department is a subtle little subplot about some romantic affectations that may or may not exist between her and the titular prince, played by Ben Barnes. Suffice to say that a kiss is involved. "I thought it was going to be really awkward," Popplewell says, "but it wasn't at all...There was no practice whatsoever. We filmed it right at the end of the shoot, so we did it after knowing each other for six months already, and it just felt like, 'Okay, this is something we're going to do on set.'"

But while in the first movie Susan was a somewhat maternal character and in Caspian she has a more romantic role, that doesn't mean she isn't an ace shot with a bow and arrow. Prince Caspian features a lot more action than the first film, much of it involving Susan alongside Peter and Edmund.

Unlike her character, "I'm not a perfect archer," Popplewell says, though she does add that she went through plenty of training to get a good feel for the weapon. "They made me look good with CGI arrows and things. I really enjoyed knowing how it's done, but then you have to alter it in order to fit cameras under your arms and over your head and things like that. But the nice thing about this movie is that I got to use the arrows a bit more creatively."

In fact, Popplewell seems to downright relish those moments. "We were talking about the death count after we saw the film last night, and obviously it's a PG film so you don't see a lot of people dying, or you don't see a lot of blood at least, but I think I probably win the death count."

Yep, a down-to-earth actress ' just with a lot of bloodlust. She laughs. "Well, I just really enjoyed being part of the action sequences this time around, because it was something I didn't get to do last time."