Ask actress Dawn French where she’d like to go if she had the chance to open a door into a whole new magical land and she barely needs more than a second to come up with an answer.
“Well, I’m quite shallow so I would like to go to choco-world,” she says licking her lips. “A place where there’s lots of chocolate stuff with chocolate stuff on it.”
Icy Narnia, the magical land in her new movie The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, couldn’t be more different.
But the 48-year-old comedy actress isn’t complaining. The film looks set to be a huge Christmas hit, and with six more potential sequels in the pipeline, Dawn is laughing all the way to the box office.
Yet, the Welsh-born star who has made a highly successful career out of mimicry says she almost turned down the offer to voice the part of an animated beaver for the film.
“I knew that when you do a voice for a character it can be a bit of a lonely experience and a bit unfulfilling,” she explains.
“You don’t have all the camaraderie and you don’t have the make-up truck and you don’t have your new little family that you can flirt with, such as lovely James McAvoy (her co-star in the movie) and you don’t get the four o’clock snacking – which is the main motivation for me obviously,” she adds with a cheeky grin.
Beaver teeth
“I was also a bit worried thinking, ‘Will I have to wear beaver teeth or have a beaver accent?’ So, a part of me was thinking, hmm, do I really want to do this?”
It was her comedy partner and close friend Jennifer Saunders who finally persuaded Dawn that Mrs Beaver was worth getting her teeth into.
“Yes, Fatty Saunders as I like to call her,” laughs Dawn. “She said to me, ‘Look. I did Shrek, with the same director Andrew Adamson and if you’re going to do something like this, he’s the guy to do it with. You will have a lot of fun’. And she was exactly right.”
Actor Ray Winstone, who voices Mr Beaver in the movie, was also a big incentive, she admits.
“He was definitely one of the reasons whey I took the job. I know Ray very well. We’re old muckers. I thought we’d be in the same room together having a laugh and in fact virtually everything was done separately. I feel a bit of a fraudster actually because all the other cast members worked really hard on the film whereas I just had a lot of fun in a small darkened room, mainly eating quite a lot of cake.”
Despite being thousands of miles from her Narnia co-stars, including James McAvoy and Tilda Swinton, who were filming in New Zealand, Dawn still managed to wangle herself a trip down under.
“I wasn’t required, but it didn’t stop me going because New Zealand is one of my favourite places, so I just turned up on set,” she adds with her trademark mischievous grin.
Classic
The film, based on the children’s classic The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, by CS Lewis, tells the story of four young brothers and sisters who open a magic wardrobe and stumble into Narnia, a mythical land where the evil White Witch (Swinton) has cast out the kind, noble lion Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) and plunged the world into an eternal winter.
And though she’d never read the book itself, the story back fond childhood memories for Dawn.
“I haven’t read the book at all, I actually had it read to me by my Dad, who was very good at reading,” she explains. “I realise only now that it gave my Dad a chance to be Aslan which is pretty good for a dad – to be wise and in charge and all knowing. That was a good trick.
“So, I remember it as a completely auditory experience, and when I saw it on the big screen it was wonderful, really wonderful.”
Dawn, who has a 13-year-old adopted daughter Billie with husband Lenny Henry, has now appeared in two of the biggest family films of recent times, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and The Chronicles Of Narnia.
But ask her who she thinks comes out on top and she’s suddenly unusually diplomatic.
“Speaking as a parent. I would say hurray for having two fantastic films to take kids too,” she smiles, “They’re both great in entirely different ways. We’ve had some famine years to take children to the movies and I’m delighted that there are two great films around.”
With plans for another of her hit TV comedy The Vicar Of Dibley, as well as a new West End stage show Smaller and another French and Saunders series, Dawn is busier than ever.
However, she says she’d jump at the chance to return to Narnia – but not necessarily as Mrs Beaver.
“I actually identified with Lucy,” she says of the young heroine of the book, played in the movie by 10-year-old Georgie Henley. “That’s who I wanted to be, completely brave. And I was slightly surprised that I wasn’t asked to play her.
“Let’s just say I am available for the sequel – as Lucy,” she adds with that tongue, as ever, firmly in cheek.
