Over the past few months, I’ve been working with Pratterson, the most outstanding webmaster of The Official Noah Huntley Fan Site to get this interview with Noah, who plays the role of King Peter the Magnificent in the film, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. After many months, we finally have it for you! Noah is a true gentleman and I thank him for doing this interview for us!
Noah Huntley: When I was seven.
NarniaFans.com: What are your memories of that?
Noah Huntley: With a number of young brothers and sisters, and in an old farmhouse with a large number of old wardrobes in it, it felt more real, more possible. The timelessness and magical possibilities in the book(s) are more easy for children to appreciate and so the world(s) of Narnia can become more real. Just as in the books, as you grow older, so it becomes harder to inhabit those worlds so completely through your mind. I must also say that as a very slow reader, I was often confused by how very different the worlds were and did not really understand or appreciate the continuity that runs through them.
NarniaFans.com: How did you feel when you learned you’d got the part?
Noah Huntley: Gail Stevens, who cast me in Danny Boyle’s ’28 Days Later’ cast me in ‘Lion, Witch..’ and I was pleased she saw me as ‘Peter the Magnificent’! Also, the prospect of working with Andrew Adamson, who’s the coolest Kiwi hippy and mind behind the ‘Shrek’ movies was very exciting. And that’s all before New Zealand, where the filming took place, which I’ve wanted to visit for ages.
NarniaFans.com: Did you know how to ride a horse prior to shooting the film?
Noah Huntley: I was able to ride horses from a very young age, but usually they were unbroken, crazy beasts that would buck and rear and duck and dodge whenever and wherever they could. Trained horses in New Zealand was a whole new relatively tame experience.
NarniaFans.com: What experiences did you have on set and what will you remember most?
Noah Huntley: New Zealand has some of the most breathtaking scenery and seems forn the most part almost deserted. The daily four hour treks prior to filming were probably some of the most incredible and memorable experiences but we were also given vials of ginseng by our head of make-up, Marjorie, and they were rocket fuel that could send us quite barmy. I think I was the only one to spot a real Unicorn in the woods.
We laughed the most on Cliché Day trying to come up with the most clichéd expressions..e.g.(Of finishing shooting early) “It’s gonna be a close run thing, too close to call at this stage; really it’s six of one half a dozen of another-Certainly a game of two halves… ..etc.”
But most touching of all was the jade pendants Andrew bought for all of us at the end of the shoot-Symbols of great importance in his native New Zealand.The Crew were also all outstanding.
NarniaFans.com: Did you study your younger counterpart to get the nuances of the character?
Noah Huntley: To some extent. In order to embrace the whole film and therefore place your own part within it, it is interesting to see the work William (Moseley) and the others had done. However, in the end, our sequences were very brief in order to keep to the main story. Really as far as this first film goes, we show how time operates in Narnia, with many years passing when only seconds or minutes pass in our own world. We also set up the older characters for the future stories. As the high Kings and Queens of Narnia, we are glimpsed as the product of the four children’s noble, courageous and compassionate virtues. The more specific characterization was as much keeping to the book as to the younger actor’s.
NarniaFans.com: Thank you, again, Noah, for doing this interview!
For more information about Noah Huntley:
Noah Huntley Cast Page