Film:
Eragon
Character: Eragon
Status: On DVD
Release Date: 16 April
Series: Echo Beach
Character:Jimmy Penwarden
Status: Filming
Release Date:2008
Film:Little Birds?
Character:Joe?
Status:???
Release Date:???
This was your first movie. Were you bricking it?
Sometimes. I think I’m more nervous about the premiere than anything else, with the flashing lights, red carpet. I’m definitely bringing spare underpants for tonight. I was aware of the pressures and who was involved in the movie and the scale of the movie. I was completely aware of all that but if I allowed myself fret and worry about that, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. I would have been a train wreck.
Take us through your first day.
First day was boiling hot sunshine, a boiling hot August day in Hungary. We were all on the farm location and Chris Egan, who plays Roran, and myself, we did the fight sequence and it was going well all day. It was going really, really well, we had lots of fun and lots of laughing around and then suddenly Chris Egan decided it would be a good idea to smack me in the face with the stick and I had this black eye. So the make-up division were having a heart attack.
And when did you meet, for example, Jeremy Irons?
When did I first meet Jeremy? Probably three weeks to a month into production. We hit it off straight away, we worked very closely from that moment onwards. He’s a great guy and really inspirational to me. He played my mentor throughout the whole process and he was doing it in real life.
He says that wasn’t the case, actually…
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| It’s tricky. It’s an unnatural thing to do, to be staring at a tennis ball and believing that it’s a real dragon. |
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How did you find all the greenscreen work?
It’s tricky. It’s an unnatural thing to do, to be staring at a tennis ball and believing that it’s a real dragon. At first it is tough but you have to do that thing where you just let your imagination run wild and just enjoy what you’re doing. That’s what I tried to do.
How was the audition process for you?
The first thing I did was I read two scenes from the script with Stefen Fangmeier and it went well, but I didn’t think it went that well. But then I had another callback and I sparked up again, thinking ‘ok’… and then about ten days later I had a phone call from my dad, saying I had the part.
Can you remember that night?
I don’t remember the ten nights afterwards. I’m not even joking. My friends and I were at school, wrapping up the year so we were on a high anyway and then my best friends threw a surprise party for me two nights before I left. It was pretty crazy!
So you’re not particularly interested in going back to school…
Education never really interested me, to be fair. I mean education does interest me, but academic school study is a different thing. I can’t quite grasp that. This is what I always wanted to do and I’m glad that I’m doing it and I hope I can stick with it.
Are you a fan of fantasy films?
I’ll go and see them. I’ll read the occasional book, but I was never a complete fan. I appreciate them and I think they can be quite entertaining, but I like things across the board.
Such as?
Papillon and True Romance are my two best films, so they’re quite different. It is eclectic.
Are you a fan of Star Wars? You have more than a couple of Luke Skywalker moments in the film…
Star Wars? People kept mentioning that but it didn’t go through my mind. I just tried to make it my own, I guess.
Are you signed on for a sequel?
Sort of. Nothing’s set in stone but potentially we’ve got two more to do.
Are you checking Paolini’s progress on the third book?
He’s in the process of doing it. I think the studio was phoning him up every now and again to see where he is with it. I spoke to him last night and asked him whether he was going to finish it.
And what did he say?
He said he’s working on it.
