Andrew Adamson Interview
Contributing sources: Narnia Web
INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW ADAMSON March 4th, Radio Rhema, (Christian radio network in NZ, 4.10pm local time).
I: Interviewer: DJ Rob Holding (Auckland NZ)
A: Andrew Adamson speaking from Los Angeles.
I: [reads info off Answers.com Wikipedia...] "Shooting is taking place in NZ, primarily based in Auckland, but will move to the South Island where much of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed. Jackson is reported to be filming parts of his upcoming version of King Kong in nearby Christchurch." And I’m sitting there thinking, hang on, I thought this was on Andrew Adamson? Are you conscious of being in Mr Jackson’s large shadow at all?
A: Certainly conscious of trying to shoot at the same time as Peter. (laugh) I wouldn’t consider myself in his shadow. I worked with Peter actually, he was sort of indirectly the person who got me into Shrek. I actually was down in NZ helping him out with some effects on Frighteners, when I used to do visual effects, and one of the executive producers on that project ended up being one of producers on Shrek, and he brought me into that. So he’s somebody I’ve stayed in touch with since then, and he’s always been incredibly supportive of everything I’ve been doing, so I’ve actually really appreciated having him there, and certainly we’ve worked with Weta a lot on this film as well. It is very much a Peter Jackson country when it comes to filming, that’s for sure!
I: We’ll try and make it a 2-horse race here. Was that in your mind when you were doing The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe, that we’ve had this incredible -I mean the two books, are very closely linked, the Narnia chronicles and the whole LOTR thing - and we’ve had this huge thing with LOTR, and then Andrew comes along to film LWW; how much extra pressure was there on you?
A: Definitely a little extra pressure. Interestingly enough, there’s actually a really wonderful article on Tolkien and Lewis, because they were very good friends, and actually Lewis helped Tolkien get his books published, because he’d succeeded with a number of his publications before The Hobbit was published, and there’s a very nice article I read, I think in the New York Times, a little while ago, that was kind-of relating that to how the making of LOTR actually made it easier for us to get this project off the ground. It was a sort of nice thing, kind-of correlating the two and saying how Lewis and Tolkien were still helping each other out, which I thought was a really sweet sentiment. We definitely had to be careful not to use the same locations, you know it was kind of New Zealand obviously has a lot to offer, location-wise, we had to be careful that it didn’t look the same.
I: LOTR is so different to LWW; I’m just reading the Chronicles of Narnia to my two youngest children at the moment, -they’d much rather Dad read two chapters a night instead of one -
A: (Laughs) It’s heavy reading for an adult!
I: Yes, but it’s very British though, isn’t it? And the thing in most of our minds most of us have seen those BBC movies with little chubby Lucy with her buck teeth, and the funny little beavers. In the back of my mind I’m going, "How the heck is Andrew going to do something different?"
A: Well, one of the fortunate things - I had NEVER seen those as a matter of fact. I read the books, I’d seen the animated version done a long time ago, which was pretty low-budget. And actually my wife had picked up the DVD of the BBC version, and I got partway through it, and I just kind of said, "I can’t watch this, it’s going to affect me in ways I can’t really say!" (laugh) And I don’t want to discredit them, they were done in a limited budget, for a TV audience, for a younger audience that was very different from what I wanted to do. And I so wanted to steer clear of the clichés, and I felt like there was a number of clichés in there, particularly with the White Witch, that I didn’t want to have in my head, going into making this film.
I: Are you happy with what you’ve got so far?
A: I am, I’m really happy with the shape the film is in, I’m really happy with the kids, and with Tilda, and with James McAvoy, and just all that - we had a really great cast.
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read full interview at link above..
And last for today..
Behind the Magic of Narnia
Chapter I - WETA:
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Chapter II - The Director:
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