“I’m absolutely terrified of rodents,” she says. “I thought the director was winding me up. I don’t think he understood just how much of a phobia it was. He called me over one day and had a mouse in his hand and I just burst into tears.”
She can be forgiven her timidity – Anna is, after all, only 16. But despite her young age, she stars in a film tipped to be one of the biggest box office hits of the year: the £110 million film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, released on December 9.
The film, directed by Andrew Adamson, has taken four years to make and features a host of British acting talent, including Jim Broadbent, Liam Neeson and Tilda Swinton as the White Witch, who has cast a spell over Narnia condemning it to eternal winter.
Anna plays Susan Pevensie, the second-eldest of four siblings sent away from home during the Second World War who stumble upon a wardrobe that gives them access to the magical world of Narnia.