His debut as the eponymous royal in the second Narnia movie, 2008’s Prince Caspian, helped the film to rack up over $400 million at the box office, and he will now reprise the role in the adaptation of Lewis’s third book in the series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
“There are some big pitched battles in this one, swords and action,” he reveals when pondering his forthcoming adventure, “although this film is more about magic, creatures and discovery. I am looking forward to seeing Caspian a few years later, as a king, playing a character that isn’t so vulnerable and fragile this time around. And playing a king, I think that has to be pretty cool. The king is in charge, for a start, although then the kids turn up and they kind of piss on his bonfire a bit!
“But I am looking forward to it. After all, as a kid you dream of wielding swords in a fantasy adventure.” He smiles.
“I definitely didn’t grow up wanting to play a young dad, with a child in a coma, searching for the answers!” The role of a young dad searching for the answers comes courtesy of the film he’s just completed in Boston, which carries the temporary title of Valediction. “It has a very adult theme and I am playing my own age for the first time ever,” says Barnes, “a 28-year-old man with a daughter. It felt like a lot of films that I have loved but also didn’t feel like anything I have read in a long time. It’s hard to describe. How would describe The Three Colours Blue or Blue Velvet or Momento? They are hard to pigeonhole. They are films about people. It is certainly the most real film I have done, it’s my second contemporary film, and it just kind of screamed at me to come and do it.”