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A few days ago, NarniaWebber ‘Pshawn’ sat down with Tony Nixon (VDT – Rynelf) for a 3o-minute interview. Narnia fans provided a lot of the questions. Below are selections from the interview, transcribed by NarniaWebbers ‘coracle’ and ‘johobbit.’ Go to NarniaWeb’s report on the story to read the full transcript and hear the podcast.
In the interview, Tony Nixon — “Director’s Choice” — describes his role in Dawn Treader and how he landed it, preparation like costumes, makeup, and props; working on the set each day, and using English accents for the Narnia characters. Tony also talks about his Christian faith and the spiritual side of Dawn Treader. He mentions that one person who appears in the book will not appear in the movie, most likely Ramandu. And we learn that there will be a “great sea battle at the end.”
Pshawn [P]: So, can you give us a quick rundown of how you’d explain your character to someone unfamiliar with the movie and the role and exactly what you do in the movie.
Tony Nixon [TN]: Okay, well, that’s a big question. Rynelf is a member of the crew of the Dawn Treader. It’s no secret that in this film he is a First Mate, and I know that in the book Rhince is the First Mate, and there’s been some conjecture about blah blah blah, Rynelf’s the first mate and Rhince’s role has changed and so on and so forth. I can’t go into that too much for obvious reasons. But actually on the DT there are a number of people who wear First mate uniforms. It’s certainly not unusual on a ship to have ranking officers. So my role on the ship is as First Mate, so therefore I am answerable to Drinian directly, played by Gary Sweet, and then I pass those orders on to the crew. So that’s basically my role as an officer on the Dawn Treader, the Narnian navy’s finest ship. . . .
P: So did you notice differences from the book into the movie and how your character evolved or changed or was introduced?
TN: Yes. I’ve got to be very careful here. Of course as you’d all understand, any book that’s adapted to film is going to have changes. And I don’t think I’m saying anything there that people don’t already know. I obviously can’t comment on what those changes are. In my heart I seriously and honestly feel that the film is true to the truths of the book, if you like, the spiritual truths are all there. I don’t think anyone’s going to be disappointed with that, and I think the themes of the book are all clearly there. . . .
P: Yeah, and so in Voyage you mentioned, there is still that spiritual side of it that does come through that, from the original C.S. Lewis, I guess people can read into a lot of spiritual messages. You believe that a lot of those have still remained intact there, being offered in the movie?
TN: I do. I guess it depends what you read in the book, of course, because everyone reads something different. For me, there’s a lot in the book about tackling fear—in the book where they’re going to the mist, or into the darkness or whatever it is, and fear comes upon then, there’s a lot about the need for an external, stronger force to help us overcome our fear. I believe that’s very strong in the film. The whole Eustace, you know, falling and being redeemed by the power of Aslan is very strong in the film. I don’t think any of that is lost. In fact, I’d go as far as to say if you made a direct page-by-page copy of the book, my personal feeling is, that people that watch that would be the people who’ve read the book, the people who probably are Christians already. To some extent, I think this will reach a far, far greater audience with this same message than just a page-by-page lift of the book, but that’s just my personal opinion. . . .P: The only other thing, I guess, is the opportunity for you to tell us anything that you’d like to. Is there anything you think the fans would love to know about, that you’ve got a special inside into?
TN: We were shooting this digitally, as you know, because it’s being made into 3-D, as well as 2-D, so we were able to watch everything on the split screens, so we were able to go down into the director’s tent, into the DOP’s tent, and look at the stuff on-screen. I think visually it’s going to be amazing. The stuff we saw had not been colour-corrected; the stuff we saw still had green-screens in place and blue-screens in place and various orange marks and points … they’re all, of course taken out at the time the film is produced. I think visually it’s going to be a stunning film. I think it is going to differ from the book. I think if you are wholly and solely locked into a page-by-page lift, let go of that idea, and accept the fact that it is true to the themes that Lewis put in there. Trust Doug. Doug was on set every single day and Doug makes sure that that happens, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with the end. The end varies from the book only slightly in that who is there, but the message that I know, particularly you people of faith, want to be put across at the end of that film is crystal-clear, doesn’t change, and if you can walk away from this film without shedding a tear, then you got a rock in your chest.
Near the end of the interview, Tony mentions that he and three other supporting cast want to appear at the Royal Film Premiere in London this November. Will they make it? Let’s hope so!
Thanks to NarniaWeb and NarniaFans for this interview! We’re looking forward to Dawn Treader on December 10!