AS JARRING MOMENTS GO, THE action figure in his likeness is nothing compared to the billboard on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. There he is, towering eight storeys above the boutiques and rock clubs on the Strip, with sword brandished, lips pursed and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian emblazoned across his legs.
"This has to be one of the weirdest moments of my life," says Ben Barnes, the young British actor who plays the title role in the upcoming movie. He backs up to take in the advertisement's full effect. "I have no comprehension of what's about to hap
pen to me, do I?" Nope.
Barnes is a polite 26-year-old who, until Walt Disney Pictures came calling in February last year, was struggling in all the typical ways fledgling actors struggle. Despite the splashy Hollywood advertising campaign, he is in many ways still living that life. He crashed at a friend's apartment during a recent visit to Los Angeles. He has no publicist. Arriving for an interview at the Sunset Tower Hotel, he parked his rental car on the street because he was wary of leaving it with the valet. Despite being blessed with more than his share of tall, dark and handsome looks – and starring in a summer blockbuster – he frets that a woman he currently has a crush on is "utterly unattainable".
His low-key life will change, no doubt, with next week's US release of the lavish Chronicles of Narnia sequel. Barnes's character is the swashbuckling descendant of pirates who must battle his evil stepfather for control of the magical kingdom. The movie, based on the CS Lewis children's classic, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia is expected by some box office analysts to sell more than £150 million in tickets in North America alone. Prince Caspian also has a pivotal role in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which Disney and Walden Media, the franchise's co-producer, plan to release in 2010. Filming for that movie is scheduled to begin later this year.
For now, though, Barnes finds himself in a rare position in Hollywood: an unknown actor on the brink of certain global fame. When Orlando Bloom landed his role in the first Lord of the Rings, nobody could say for sure whether the movie would catapult him to stardom. But The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is as close to a sure thing any movie gets in Hollywood. The first film, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, released in 2005, made £390 million at the box office worldwide.
"I keep telling him to remember who he is right now," Andrew Adamson, the film's director, says, adding: "I've been through enough of this to know how much what's coming can really mess with you, good or bad."
Barnes was crowned a Disney prince by accident. A London casting director saw him in the West End production of The History Boys just three weeks before filming for Prince Caspian was due to start. Barnes played the decidedly non-Disney role of a sexually aggressive boy who toys with his teachers.
Aside from The History Boys, the actor's CV included a bit role in Stardust, the fantasy starring Robert De Niro that flopped at the box office last year, and a television pilot (in which he played a high-school quarterback) that never made it to air. But he had had experience as a heartthrob: while studying children's literature and drama at Kingston University London, he played the lead in the school production of Don Juan.
Disney and Walden were looking for a particular type of actor, says Oren Aviv, president for production at Walt Disney Studios. The role called for dark features to contrast with those of William Moseley, the blond actor who portrays Peter Pevensie, the oldest of the children who magically journey to Narnia. He needed to be able to pull off a believable Mediterranean accent. Horse-riding skills were important. "We also needed somebody we felt could handle the pressure of going from obscurity to stardom," Aviv says.
Barnes was hired just three days after being spotted, in a phone call from California that came in at 3am, London time. "I just ran around my house screaming," Barnes recalls.
The producers of The History Boys were not as thrilled, however, telling several newspapers that they were considering suing him for leaving on short notice to star in a "children's Disney movie". They got over it.
Barnes forgot he had fibbed about knowing how to ride horses until he arrived on the New Zealand set, where he was required to cross a river on horseback. He had told the producers his riding was "average", but in reality he had seen a horse only once. "My mother still can't hear the words Ben and horse in the same sentence without getting the giggles," he says.
You may remember Barnes from somewhere else. In 2004, he was in a boy band called Hyrise. Sample lyric: "When you touch me and tease me you're leadin' me on." In one TV appearance, still viewable on YouTube in all of its synchronised, hip-swinging glory, Barnes gives an interview that is particularly mortifying in retrospect.
"I've got a bit of a tricky note to hit tonight," he says, "so I'm just going to tighten my belt, wear my cheeky tight pants."
The remarks, Barnes says, were written by a producer. "I learned a very important lesson from that. Never agree to say or do anything that isn't you."
What other people are saying"The finely honed, elfin good looks and jet-black hair probably clinched it for Prince Caspian's beleaguered casting director who, after 13 months of searching, spotted Barnes on stage at the National."
– Guardian"The moment when Irwin is propositioned by Dakin (Ben Barnes), one of the sixth formers, who suggests a bit of casual Sunday afternoon fellatio, created a nervous silence in a packed auditorium that you could have cut with a knife."
The History Boys review
– Stage• Prince Caspian is released in the UK on 26 June.
The full article contains 1028 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
