The White Witch of Narnia, who has imprisoned the land in a hundred years of winter (and no Christmas!), was supposed to be Nicole Kidman at one point, from what I understand. If that’s true, director Andrew Adamson lucked out that she couldn’t do the film, as Tilda Swinton is fantastic in the role.
In real life Tilda’s hair is white, or a very very platinum blonde, and she kind of looks like David Bowie. Skandar is much less of a little [jerk].
Q: White Witch vs Lord Voldemort. Who wins?
Swinton: Can I ask you a question? Are you talking about a character from Lord of the Rings? Seriously, because I haven’t seen Lord of the Rings.
Q: Harry Potter.
Swinton: I haven’t seen that either. Sorry. [to Skandar] But you say, since you’ve seen Harry Potter.
Keynes: I’ve seen Harry Potter. White Witch all the way! But I haven’t seen Voldemort alive yet.
Swinton: That’s a fantastic idea. To do a film where they fight.
Q: Skandar, Edmund could be seen as a real jerk in this movie. He betrays his brothers and sisters. How do you make him likable at the end?
Keynes: I don’t think you’re supposed to like him at first. You’re not supposed to sympathize with him, anyway. It’s when he gets redeemed that you like him. It was easy with Andrew’s direction and the script.
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ComingSoon.net spoke with Swinton and Keynes recently about their respective characters and their relationship in this story.
CS: Did you read C.S. Lewis’ books as a child?
Tilda Swinton: I didn’t. I’m the only living person who did not read this as a child.
Skandar Keynes: I read it, and I was never really aware that it had such a big following and now I’ve noticed that it does. I never really felt any pressure.
CS: But did you have a sense that this film would be important, and if so, what do you feel is the importance?
Swinton: We got a sense of the size, and we got a sense they were spending some money on it, because 1500 people turned up for lunch every day. I’m not a person to answer about the importance, because as I say, I was an infidel. I wasn’t a “Narnian” as a child so I didn’t have the feeling of the pressure. I knew that Narnia was a big thing for people, but I didn’t realize until the last few days quite how big and how many people it is a big thing for. (to Skandar) You might have more of a sense of that cause it was a big thing when you were a child.
CS: Having now read the books, do you think that Andrew stayed true to them with his focus?
Keynes: Yes, and it is. We had Lewis’ stepson as a supervisor on the set, making sure we didn’t go too far which we didn’t. It’s very faithful. Many fans of the book having seen the film now say that they’re glad we didn’t go too far in reinventing things. We never reinvented things, we sort of expanded on them… taking little gambles. The battle scene was only a page long [in the book].
Swinton: In fact, the entire book, for those like me who came to it so late… Now knowing the film so well, you go back to the book as I did the other day and it’s tiny! It’s really, really tiny and CS Lewis writes so beautifully that a line will evoke an entire world and the battle is only that much. (makes a hand gesture to represent a small amount)
CS: In the book, there’s a scene where the White Witch has a talk with Aslan in his tent. Was that actually shot for the film?
Swinton: No, it’s not, by the way in the book either, it’s just to do with them walking off. I don’t think in the book they ever go into a tent they just go walk up the side of a hill and have a little chat – but you’re never there. The narrator never takes us there, we don’t know what goes on. Who knows what goes on between the force of all evil and the force of all good I mean that really is something to have in one’s mind.
CS: So what did each of you like the most about your characters?
Swinton: I don’t really play a character because the White Witch is not human, so that gave me a free pass to allow her not to add up at all. I don’t know that I like anything about her, really. She’s inhuman in that she’s just interested in dominating in a doubtless way and I find that truly despicable and not really useful for human beings. But she looks good.
Keynes: I like Edmond and the fact that he goes through such a new journey and changes the most, and that I got the chance to do the most sort of varied performance. It was great for me, because it challenged me, and it meant I could push myself further. Andrew is a perfectionist, which is great because it meant that he would never really give up on me. At the end of the day, I could come away feeling that reward.
CS: Skandar, how was the transition for your character to go from bratty to good, and were you ever asked to play it even naughtier?
Keynes: Not necessarily easy, changing ways, but once I’d done it was most rewarding, so it was what was wanted. I don’t think they wanted me to be naughtier. They were fine with the naughtiness.
CS: Skandar, this being a huge epic, how was it for your first movie?
Keynes: Cool. It was fun. I don’t know about other movie sets that are like it… but it was fun.
CS: Did you become friends with the cast?
Keynes: Yeah we did. Something that Mark and Andrew noticed on the final screen test and wanted to make sure [of] was that we bonded well like a family and fitted our roles, which was kind of luck in a way. When we were in New Zealand we were like a family, so it was great that we had bonded well.
CS: Did you have to go through a lot of training for the fight scenes?
Keynes: Yes, I did all my own stunts.
Swinton: Even eating Turkish Delight, which was the biggest stunt of all.
CS: For those of us whom aren’t Turkish, what is Turkish Delight anyway?
Swinton: Well there are those who will tell you it’s the most delicious thing on earth and there are those who will tell you it’s disgusting and I’m in the latter camp. It tastes of soap.
Keynes: They actually made a fiberglass one with a talcum powder. It’s delicious if you have the really good stuff in small amounts. Not in industrial quantities.
Swinton: It’s like a jello… I can’t think of a western equivalent.
Keynes: It’s one of those things that if you hold in your hand too long it will start molding over your hand.
Swinton: It’s like something you’d get from a joke shop.
CS: Did you know that you’d be required to do so much for this film?
Keynes: Well, I had talked to Andrew, and we did rehearsals. During the first day we got to New Zealand at 5 o’clock in the morning he sent us straight to base camp and we started rehearsing. Also, during auditions, I had talked to Andrew and we sort of collaborated a bit.
CS: Did you learn how to ride a horse?
Keynes: Yes, I learned how to. During the final cut it didn’t get into that much, but I know how to.
Swinton: Neither Will nor Skandar had ever been on a horse before this film, which is really impressive. They’re galloping across plains with no saddle and no bridle.
CS: And had you ridden in a chariot before?
Swinton: Not on film.
CS: Tilda, what sort of tricks did they use to make you look so big on screen?
Swinton: The dress and tiny, tiny, tiny costars and heels. (To Skandar) You were so much smaller though when you started. Basically, you grew 6 and a half inches during the shoot and I think you must have grown two more since then.
Keynes: I was 4’9″.
Swinton: We were doing television interviews the other day in front of a poster of us and Skandar looks [completely different].
CS: What did they do to your eyes to make them look so scary?
Swinton: I wear a variety of different colored contact lenses. There was an idea that Andrew and I had that when the witch killed that her pupils would dilate like a cat when a cat has killed a mouse or a bird, pupils dilate. We had this idea – anything to make her that bit more frightening.
CS: How was it for you to work with younger, inexperienced actors?
Swinton: The great thing about working with anybody, whether they’re an experienced actor or not, is that you hope they’re going to be a person. Actors either are people who have so much experience that they know what you really need to be as a person or people who haven’t got any experience tend to know that as well. Again, given what I said earlier about choosing filmmakers, I had a really good conversation with Andrew, to put together this group of children?(To Skandar) Sorry to call you a child, I know you’re really a dude, but you were a child once? He picked real people, and the fact that they’re not experienced might have something to do with it, but I suspect that they’ll always be very variable people even when they make films. The same is true with a film like “Thumbsucker.” You know, it’s just putting different people together in a group.
CS: How much of the religious allegory was in your mind while making this movie?
Swinton: The religious allegory never occurred to me, but then I’m not looking for religious allegory and so maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe those who look for such a thing might find it. I don’t know, but it depends on their religion. I think it’s all in the eye of the beholder. I think it’s pre-religious, really. It’s a classical fairy story about surviving and being self-sufficient; which is actually the opposite of being religious, which is the opposite of relying on other people or any kind of belief system. It’s about really digging deep and learning who you are when you’re away from your mother and father.
CS: Did you see any similarities between your characters in this and in “Constantine”?
Swinton: No similarities at all. They’re kind of bookends. I love the fact that I actually decided to do both these films right about at the same time; and the decisions were related in a way. I loved the fact that at the beginning of this year, I play the righteous right-hand of God, and at the other end of the year I play the epitome of all evil. I think that they’re very different in the sense that the arc-angel is righteous and is absolutely determined that God needs souls, and as many souls the better. The arc-angel is the illustration of the idea that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but is also demonically warm. I was interested in the idea that it’s possible for people to get completely carried away with the idea of doubtless righteousness; and we all know this now, it’s really a possibility. I would say actually that’s the one similarity between them, is that they’re doubtless. That’s why both of them are involved with or incline to evil because that’s what is truly the idea of being absolutely and unswayably doubtless. Of course the White Witch is not even interested in being righteous at all. She’s just bad.
CS: Considering that you’ve made a career of making those smaller independent films, what makes you say “yes” to a bigger film like this?
Swinton: Honestly I’m not aware of having a career, I’m aware of having a life and I just choose the friends I want to hang out with for however long it is that it takes to make a film. Particularly in the independent world, that can mean years so you need to pick well. I learned very early on when I was spoiled with my working experience with Derek Jarman, through my work for nine years on seven films, that friendship’s the best thing you can find on a film set. It’s worth sticking with your mates, really. So I’m always looking for people who I want to hang out with. I’ve been very, very fortunate.
CS: But business-wise, is it good to do a “Constantine” or a “Narnia” in order to help gets butts in the seats for when you do the smaller films?
Swinton: There are people who I’m associated with who would be nodding right now and they’d probably say “yes.” There’s no doubt about it. I’m truly thrilled at the idea that maybe thanks to Walt Disney, people might, if we pull it off, go and seek out Derek Jarman films or Lynn Hershman films, and that really gives me a thrill. It might make it easier for me to get films made in the future, so that would be a great bonus. Having said that, I would have made this film with Andrew Adamson if he had wanted to make it in a parking lot on $200,000 dollars, I really would. It was a sort of an added joke that it was this juggernaut, and we went to the set in helicopters every day.
CS: What are your post-Narnia plans?
Keynes: I’m going to school. I go to auditions and stuff, I went through an entire string of auditions right when I got back from New Zealand, so nothing’s confirmed yet.
Swinton: I’m going home to reacquaint myself with my children, and then, I’m going to make a film in the New Year in New York with George Clooney. It’s a film called “Michael Clayton” by Tony Gilroy, made by the same team who did “Traffic” and “Syriana” – a political/corporate sleeze type story set in New York.
CS: Has the studio left the door open for more films and do you have any sort of contract that says whether you’ll be in the next film?
Keynes: I should check. I don’t know if they’re going to make another film, you’d have to ask Andrew or Mark.
CS: Tilda, could you come back for a sequel?
Swinton: I can actually, because “The Magician’s Nephew” is a prequel and Jadis is in that one. I really, really hope they do that one because it is wicked, and I love it.
CS: So the possibility has been mentioned?
Swinton: Obviously they’re calling this thing “The Chronicles of Narnia” so obviously somewhere before they printed posters someone was thinking that if this one draws a few people into the cinemas, they might consider doing some more so I don’t know, but literally, nobody knows.
