Roy Billing cast as Chief Dufflepud in Dawn Treader

Moviehole is reporting the New Zealand actor Roy Billing has been cast as the Chief Duffer (head of the Dufflepuds) in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The actor speaks about the role, saying, “I hope on a plane on Monday. I’m playing Chief Dufflepud – a gnome-like creature who hops around on one leg. There’s a whole heap of [Dufflepuds]. It should take a week or so to film my scene.”

Billing says the first thing he has to do when he arrives is get fitted for his prosthetics. The Dufflepuds are a curious group of [one-legged] creatures that Eustace, Lucy and their companions come upon in their adventures. Though not intelligent, they have the power of invisibility. Of the local actors involved in the directed sequel, Gary Sweet (“Macbeth”) has the biggest role, says Billing.

“Gary has quite a big role – he’s playing a Sea Captain. He’s probably in a half to three quarters of the movie.”

Though he’s been working in the industry for 30 years, this is Billing’s first time doing a big Hollywood production. He didn’t need to think twice when asked to come onboard.

“The first Narnia movies were a big success, and I’m sure this will be too – with all the special effects and so on. It should be good.”

You can read more about the actor at Moviehole

Here’s an excerpt of the big speech given by the Chief:

“Well,” said the Chief Voice. “It’s like this. This island has been the property of a great magician time out of mind. And we all are – or perhaps in a manner of speaking, I might say, we were – his servants. Well, to cut a long story short, this magician that I was speaking about, he told us to do something we didn’t like. And why not? Because we didn’t want to. Well, then, this same magician he fell into a great rage; for I ought to tell you he owned the island and he wasn’t used to being crossed. He was terribly downright, you know. But let me see, where am I? Oh yes, this magician then, he goes upstairs (for you must know he kept all his magic things up there and we all lived down below), I say he goes upstairs and puts a spell on us. An uglifying spell. If you saw us now, which in my opinion you may thank your stars you can’t, you wouldn’t believe what we looked like before we were uglified. You wouldn’t really. So there we all were so ugly we couldn’t bear to look at one another. So then what did we do? Well, I’ll tell you what we did. We waited till we thought this same magician would be asleep in the afternoon and we creep upstairs and go to his magic book, as bold as brass, to see if we can do anything about this uglification. But we were all of a sweat and a tremble, so I won’t deceive you. But, believe me or believe me not, I do assure you that we couldn’t find any thing in the way of a spell for taking off the ugliness. And what with time getting on and being afraid that the old gentleman might wake up any minute – I was all of a muck sweat, so I won’t deceive you – well, to cut a long story short, whether we did right or whether we did wrong, in the end we see a spell for making people invisible. And we thought we’d rather be invisible than go on being as ugly as all that. And why? Because we’d like it better. So my little girl, who’s just about your little girl’s age, and a sweet child she was before she was uglified, though now – but least said soonest mended – I say, my little girl she says the spell, for it’s got to be a little girl or else the magician himself, if you see my meaning, for otherwise it won’t work. And why not? Because nothing happens. So my Clipsie says the spell, for I ought to have told you she reads beautifully, and there we all were as invisible as you could wish to see. And I do assure you it was a relief not to see one another’s faces. At first, anyway. But the long and the short of it is we’re mortal tired of being invisible. And there’s another thing. We never reckoned on this magician (the one I was telling you about before) going invisible too. But we haven’t ever seen him since. So we don’t know if he’s dead, or gone away, or whether he’s just sitting upstairs being invisible, and perhaps coming down and being invisible there. And, believe me, it’s no manner of use listening because he always did go about with his bare feet on, making no more noise than a great big cat. And I’ll tell all you gentlemen straight, it’s getting more than what our nerves can stand.”

Read a bit about the Chief Duffer
Roy Billing Bio