NarniaFans Interviews Rynelf, Gael, and the Belligerent Telmarine

NarniaFans.com interviewed three of the actors from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader — Tony Nixon who plays Rynelf (credited as 1st Mate), Arabella Morton who plays Gael, and Mirko Grillini who plays the Belligerent Telmarine. Here are some highlights from each interview.

NarniaFans.com: How did you prepare for your role [as Rynelf]?

Tony Nixon: Usually I like to get the script ASAP and get as much information from that as I can. However I waited and waited, but no script was forthcoming. The role had been listed as a “Support role” and so I wasn’t sure how much dialogue I would have.
I finally got to see the script for the first time 2 weeks before shooting started at a full cast read through. I was a little disappointed at how little dialogue the support roles had. On the other hand as it was only two weeks out I was a bit relieved too.
In this case of course we had the book to go on. I read the book several times and made notes on Rynelf. In particular I was interested in his relationship to Caspian. And so I tried to build up some kind of character from what I could glean from the book.

The full interview with Tony Nixon is available here.

NarniaFans.com: How did you come to be involved with this Chronicles of Narnia movie? Take us through the process for how you learned of the film and casting.

Arabella Morton: My Mum didn’t tell me I was auditioning for ‘Narnia’ – at this stage of the casting it had another name – ‘The Invisible Army’ due to confidentiality. It was only when I was inside the Audition room that they told me and I was SOOO excited I yelled out with excitement when I left the audition. My Mum & Agent didn’t want me to have additional pressure of knowing the name of the movie. There were so many other girls there and they were all so beautiful and talented … I already loved the 1st 2 Narnia movies and always related well to ‘Lucy’. Just knowing I was in the running to meet her and perhaps meet the other cast members was pretty cool – I thought would be a dream come true!
We received a phone call from my Agent, Natalie Hall about a week or so later, I had not forgotten about Narnia, far from it, but I didn’t want to get my hopes too high! Afterwards, Mummy said that Natalie was very confident that I may have the role, but she didn’t tell me this before the 2nd audition. I went for the 2nd Audition with Michael Apted and Cort; I didn’t realise I was the ONLY one to do this… guess this meant I was pretty high on the list! Michael was so lovely, very kind to me and funny. On this day I also met Steve Rooke (Nausus the faun) and Rachel Blakely (‘Gael’s’ mum, ‘Helaine’). Rachel helped us by playing ‘Lucy’ during the audition with me. I was staying with Nanna & Grandad during the school holidays, when Mummy arrived out of the blue one day, soon after the 2nd audition; she walked in the door, handed me the phone and Natalie told me (very loudly) that I had secured the role of ‘Gael’ – it was one of the happiest days of my life… I screamed very loudly and jumped up and down a lot, my brother Charlie was hugging me and we had a little ‘happy cry’. I then became a little nervous… I was going to meet some of my favourite people, spend 6 months on set and life was about to get a little bit crazy! I was 8 years old and going for a magical voyage in Narnia!!!

The full interview with Arabella Morton is available here.

NarniaFans.com: What was life like on the set? Give us a good ‘day in the life’ type of thing.

Mirko Grillini: Ha ha ha, a good day…. they were all good days. For me it started with waking up. You know, getting through the gates of the studios, saying good morning to everyone, making a few coffees for other actors and crew (we had a coffee machine and I love making coffees… True Italian blood I guess), then into my trailer were my clean ironed clothing would be hanging. Reading the scenes that were going to be shot on that day and go to make up to make me look more “belligerent”. From there, it was life on set. Rehearsing, blocking, filming, resting, getting wet in the storm scenes and very hot in the armour under the Queensland sun. I remember a particular funny episode with Caspian during the shooting of one of the storm scenes. Both Ben and I were hit by 2,000 litres of water pouring all at once from a very large tank, simulating a wave…. I have never had so much fun, it was like being in a gigantic water slide. The Dawn Treader was shaking and I was rolling on the floor like a doughnut. There is another very, very funny episode that happened in Ramandu’s Island but it’s very hard to explain in writing….. I’m still laughing thinking about it.

The full interview with Mirko Grillini is here.