Here is a portion of ComingSoon.net’s interview with Ben Barnes.
ComingSoon.net How does this compare to “Stardust”? Can we assume that it’s a much bigger scale?
Ben Barnes: I didn’t really get used to it, because I was only on that for a couple of weeks. But in terms of the scales of the sets and everything it was kind of similar. There was one scene I did in this kind of magic marketplace, and they built it in the courtyard of a castle, a real castle, up in the north of England. I walked in and my jaw dropped, almost as far as it dropped when I walked on to the Miraz castle set that we’ve got in Prague at the moment, which is just… Have you seen it? It just blew me away.
CS: What was the audition process for this like?
Barnes: Actually I came into it really late. I know that they’d been looking for a long time, and I hadn’t really heard about it at all. Somebody came to see a play that I was doing and I went in to meet the casting director in London, just to read like two scenes, and then the next week I met up with Andrew and all the producers and screen tested and then I had the job four days later. It was really fast. It was like three weeks from start to finish. Less. Two and a half weeks from when I heard about it to when I got the job.
CS: What does the character give you as an actor to grab onto?
Barnes: Well I think the reason I like the character is because he’s sort of an everyman. It’s sort of a coming of age story, really. It’s from boy to man and prince to king, kind of story. Obviously, it’s been adapted somewhat from how it is in the book because the kids that were in the first one have grown up so much that it’s very hard to keep them as young children. So it all had to kind of grow up a little bit. Hopefully, he’s a kind of everyman character that you go on the journey with and sort of drags you through the story, and hopefully you kind of emphasize with him and latch on to what he’s feeling. When he’s feeling vulnerable, you feel vulnerable, and when he’s feeling strong, you’re feeling good about what’s happening. Principally, he’s that kind of character, but he’s very honorable and I think those are kind of the principal things, really.
CS: You didn’t have much time to prepare for this, did you?
Barnes: Actually, once I got to New Zealand I had a good few weeks. I literally got off the plane and within 20 minutes of getting off the plane in New Zealand I was on a horse, and they were like, “Okay, go.” And I did it every day for two months, I think. I was riding with these fantastic Spanish horse trainers we’ve got and doing the stunt training with Allan Poppleton, who choreographs all the fights for us. He’s fantastic. So I had a good sort of eight weeks out there, whilst filming little bits and pieces, but I had a good eight weeks of quite hardcore training.
CS: Were you experienced on a horse?
Barnes: No. I might have suggested that I had ridden before, but I, in fact, had not. So yeah, that was an experience. But I love it now. I love it.
CS: Did you read the books or know the part Prince Caspian played in not just this, but future books as well?
Barnes: I actually knew the first three: “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe”, “Prince Caspian” and “Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”
CS: So you were familiar with the character?
Barnes: Yeah, I remember watching the BBC series where Sam West played him in the “Dawn Treader” part, and I remember sort of being exactly the right age for that to really capture my imagination. As soon as I got the script I remembered the beginning of that with the theme music and how it kind of panned over the map of Narnia and all that. Actually, right when I first heard about the audition, I went and looked on my bookshelves and found my copy of “Prince Caspian,” and it had a copyright date of 1989. So I remember I was eight. So that’s like the perfect age, I think, to have first got into that. And it had a little sticker in the front saying, “I can’t bear to be without my books” and a picture of a bear and below that was written Benjamin Barnes in my little eight-year-old handwriting.
