When I met Andrew Adamson on the set of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” last fall, he was surrounded by stone statues, tangled electronics, and countless crew members. The voice of Aslan hadn’t yet been cast, he’d been working on the movie round the clock, and he seemed- to put it mildly- like he was carrying the weight of an entire fantasy world on his creative shoulders. This November, a much more relaxed Adamson basked in the anticipated released of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” and took time to talk to press.
Q: What made you choose this film for your live action debut?
ANDREW: The fact that I grew up with it as a child, I fell in love with this story, this world. I read the book at eight years old, and I read all seven of them and reluctantly got the end of the last one thinking ‘I’m going to have to start all over again.’
Q: Had you seen the animated version?
ANDREW: I saw that when I was young and I went back and saw it again as an adult. I wouldn’t say it was well made, but they made some decisions that were strange and yet I understand- for instance, Mr. Tumnus was dancing around on the lamppost being incredibly silly- and at the same time I know the goal was to liven up the story, which is a somber book in many ways. I had the same challenge. What I found reassuring was that it still worked on an emotional level. You get to the point where Aslan is going to his death, and as crude as that animation is, you still feel the emotion. And that was reassuring. It was going to be hard to screw it up, basically.
