A few short months ago Georgie Henley’s greatest role was the “loud growling monster” in an am-dram play. How life changes. Now the 10-year-old from Ilkley has been plucked from obscurity to star in the £110m blockbuster family film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, based on the classic novels by CS Lewis.
With its London premiere next Wednesday and several sequels in the pipeline the Moorfield School pupil has surely taken the first step on the road to movie megastardom.
“I don’t want to sound selfish or anything, but I kind of like being in the spotlight,” she says as preparations for the big night gather pace.
“It’s nice to be noticed. I got to go to New Zealand and the Czech Republic and London to make the movie, but I do have a kind of balance because I can always go back up to Yorkshire and be my old self.
“You don’t get any of this kind of glamour up there.”
Debatable, but at least the White Rose County did provide the youngster with her first shot at acting.
She was spotted in her school’s Christmas play at five-and-a-half when the rest of the cast were double her age.
Gill Jackson, a drama teacher at the school who has worked with the young starlet for the past four years says: “She has always had a talent. I knew she could do it – she could ad lib and improvise even at that age.”
Georgie’s talent developed further at the Upstagers amateur dramatics society in Ilkley where she appeared in a production of Monster Mash and as a Morris
dancer in a separate production.
Mrs Jackson, who heads Upstagers, brought Georgie to the attention of Pippa Hall, London casting director for the Narnia film.
“I told the casting agent that they ought to come and have a look at some of the youngsters from Upstagers,” the teacher says.
“It took some effort to pin her down, but she ended up coming here.”
Georgie was an instant hit and landed the lead role of Lucy Pevensie – the little girl who discovers the magical world of Narnia at the back of a wardrobe – ahead of 2,000 other hopefuls.