Ben Barnes relishes his roles as a leading man

It could be an ironic twist of fate that every time Ben Barnes has had a starring role in a "Chronicles of Narnia" movie, he’s ended up having a scheduling conflict with a West End play that he’s doing. In 2007, Barnes was cast as the title character in the 2008 film "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," the second film in the movie series based on the C.S. Lewis "Narnia" books. It was Barnes’ first starring role in a major motion picture, but the problem was he had to take an early leave of the West End production of "The History Boys" (in which he played Dakin) in order to do the movie.

Fast forward to 2010, and Barnes was faced with another dilemma involving choosing between his responsibilities to a "Narnia" movie and his commitment to a West End play. The world premiere of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (the third film in the series) in London on November 30 was chosen as 2010’s Royal Film Performance (only one film a year is selected), the principal fundraising event for the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund. The event was attended by Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh. But the problem was that the royals were scheduled to arrive at the premiere at the exact time that Barnes was due on stage for his starring role as Stephen Wraysford in "Birdsong," the West End play based on the Sebastian Faulks novel of the same title. Barnes (who plays King Caspian in "Dawn Treader") did red-carpet interviews and photos at the premiere, and then he had to rush off to do "Birdsong" before the queen and her husband arrived.

I recently sat down with Barnes in London for this exclusive, one-on-one interview. By the time we had this conversation, Barnes had already been asked the typical "Narnia"-related questions in other interviews, so rather than rehash the same subjects, we talked about "Dawn Treader," "Birdsong" and Barnes’ 2011 comedy film "Killing Bono," which is adapted from music journalist Neil McCormick’s memoir (titled "Killing Bono" in the United States and "I Was Bono’s Doppelganger" in the United Kingdom). In "Killing Bono," Barnes plays McCormick from his teenage years through his 20s in Ireland, where McCormick was a wannabe rock star/lead singer of a struggling rock band who couldn’t help but feel envious rivalry when his former school mate Bono (real name: Paul Hewson) went on to superstardom with the band U2.

Barnes is so excited about "Killing Bono" that he whipped out his iPhone to show me unreleased photos from the movie and play me "Killing Bono" soundtrack songs that he sang. We had a laugh over the myriad of late ‘70s/early ‘80s rocker looks that he has in the movie, including Barnes in a David Bowie-like "Heroes" bouffant/pompadour hairstyle; Barnes wearing black lipstick and stripes on his face, reminiscent of Adam Ant circa 1980; and what Barnes describes as his "A Flock of Seagulls look" (which you can briefly see in the "Killing Bono" trailer), with Barnes sporting an asymmetrical jagged hairstyle partially covering one side of his face. As for the singing, Barnes shows considerable and impressive range, going from an irreverent snarl influenced by Sex Pistols lead singer Johnny Rotten to a post-punk wail on a song that will remind people of U2’s "I Will Follow" to a slightly dangerous growl that sounds kind of like Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs. The titles of the songs cannot be revealed for now, but I can tell you that Barnes sounds like a different singer on almost every track. He explains why — and more — in this interview.

[Says jokingly] I heard the queen didn’t enjoy the "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" premiere as much as she could have because you weren’t there to greet her.

[He laughs.] Well, I was there at the premiere, and I’ve met her before.

What do you remember about the first time that you met the queen?

It was her 80th birthday party. Prince Edward was a patron of the National Youth Music Theatre, which I used to be in. Jude Law and Jamie Bell also used to be in it too. Prince Edward was the patron, so he asked that company to do a selection of songs at the queen’s 80th birthday while they were having dinner.

And one of the songs they asked me to sing was from a musical called "The Dreaming," based on "A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream," but it’s the moment when I have love potion put on my eyes. And so I had this love potion put on my eyes, and I’m more kind of lustful, and so I’m singing this song to this girl and chasing her around this stage and ripping my clothes off as I run after her, while the royal family is sitting there eating dinner, looking at me very curiously, like, "What are you doing?" It’s totally out-of-context to the rest of the story, so they must’ve thought I was barking mad. But I did meet her after that.

That’s quite an impression you must’ve left: stripping for the queen. For people who don’t know why you couldn’t meet her at "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" premiere, can you explain why you couldn’t get out of your commitment to "Birdsong"?

I was absolutely gutted that I couldn’t meet her at the premiere, but the decision to do the play was made before the premiere was a Royal Film Performance. I signed on to the play, and I thought, "Well, I’ll just nip away while everyone’s watching the film. No one will notice, because I’m doing the red carpet, I’ll go in, I’ll go out the back, do the play, come back to the premiere, and I won’t let anybody down." That was my plan. That was my thought process. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been good enough for some critics, but I was just trying to please everybody.

In interviews, you’ve been ambushed a few times by people who brought up your short-lived stint in the pop-music boy band Hyrise, which competed to be on Eurovision in 2004. You’ve made it clear that you’re embarrassed by your Hyrise experience and that you really don’t like it that one of your Hyrise performances is on YouTube. You’ve also said that you’ve had better musical performances that had nothing to do with Hyrise that you wish people could see. What exactly are those other performances?

Just things when I was at school. I used to sing with this soul band. We used to do Motown stuff. And when I left school, I put together a little band with someone of the people who taught music at my school to do functions, like graduation balls and stuff. I only did a few, but I was kind of rocking out, doing Stevie Wonder covers and stuff like that.

And no one videotaped any of it?

No one videotaped it. And I was actually signed to Simon Fuller at 19 Management, and we were working on a big band sound. So I have done various music projects and spent a lot longer on them than I spent on that Hyrise rubbish, and I was more proud of those projects. But we’re going to get some singing from me in "Killing Bono." I sing about 10 songs in it.

What can you say about your "Killing Bono" songs?

Joe Echo wrote them. He co-wrote the Madonna song "Celebration." He wrote all these great songs for "Killing Bono." Some of them are really great, anthemic songs. Near the end, my band [in "Killing Bono"] gets quite good, but in the beginning, they’re rubbish!

So it moves through me screaming about kind of punk stuff in leather trousers through to the kind of New Romantic stuff, like David Bowie-ish. And then I go though a Mick Jagger stage. And then I pretend that I’m Bono. Basically, we decided that the reason why that Neil McCormick failed as a musician was because — well, no one ever knows, really — he kept trying to emulate all these other people.

Neil McCormick was in a band with his younger brother, Ivan. If you were in a band with your younger brother, Jack, what would the dynamic be?

We [Jack and I] live together, and we get on really well. So hopefully, it would be brilliant. But I like the fact that we do completely different things in life. I think that’s part of the reason why we get on so well. We only ever argued when we were younger if there was competition. I really respect and admire that he does it own job, and he does it really well. He works in sports management.

A few years ago, you auditioned for the Stephen Wraysford role when it looked like "Birdsong" would be made into a movie. Did the "Birdsong" movie screenplay have a narrative from Stephen’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, which is a big part the book that isn’t in the "Birdsong" play?

In the film version I read, yes. But there have been lots of different versions of it, and Sebastian Faulks has never been happy enough for it to be ready, which is important. But he was happy enough with Rachel Wagstaff’s play script. It would be a massive shame if there isn’t a screen version of "Birdsong." I think they should do "Birdsong" on TV, maybe in three parts, about two hours each — and then they could have everything.

You broke your ribs while doing "Birdsong." What happened? And how are your ribs now?

They’re fine. They healed pretty fast. In the very first performance, I broke two ribs, but I didn’t realize it until about three days later. Two days after it happened, I was in pain, and I thought I was fine. Then I said to the company manager, "There’s something really wrong."

So I went to the doctor, and they were like, "You’ve broken two ribs." But then I couldn’t take any time off, because I’d already done the play three times with broken ribs, so I couldn’t use the excuse, "Oh, now it hurts."

Most of your acting projects were originally based on books. If you could pick any book to be made into a movie, what would it be?

"Birdsong." I would love to see a four-hour, enormous movie of it. I can think of nothing more that I’d want to watch.

Speaking of movies based on books, is there anything in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" book that you wish had made it into the movie?

That’s a good question. I read the book before we did the movie, but I haven’t looked at it since then. It’s such an episodic book. When I was 8, I read a chapter a night before I’d go to sleep. And you can read a chapter of it, and they go on a new adventure, achieve a new goal, go back on the ship, go to sleep, wake up the next day, and go to an island. And it’s really satisfying to read that when you’re a child when you can’t read the whole book in a night.

And that’s what’s so wonderful about the film: We get all these different episodes in these different little adventures, but at the same time, in the movie, you have to thread it all together. In the book, they’re looking for the seven lords, but it’s really not motivation enough for a film. So you need to find the tokenistic swords of the lords. It’s such a simple device, and I don’t think it’s really threatening to anyone who loves the books. It just sews it all together.

I think it’s really fun to watch. I feel quite nostalgic when I watch it, because it reminds me of reading it when I was younger. When they opened the hangar doors of the studios, and they’d built the Goldwater Island pond or the Dufflepud Island with the magician’s door and all this stuff, it all came flooding back to me. It’s my favorite of the "Narnia" movies. It’s got the heart and soul and magic of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," but it’s also got the adventure and the action of "Prince Caspian."

You play a World War I soldier in "Birdsong." Were any of your family members involved in World War I?

I had two family members involved in World War I: two great-uncles. One of them is on a memorial in France. And the other was a trench runner who survived the war. The average life span of a trench runner was 36 hours, but he survived the whole war.

How long has your family been in England?

I don’t know. I don’t know how far back they go.

When you met Neil McCormick while you were filming "Killing Bono," what surprised you the most about him?

I’d only met him three-quarters of the way through filming, because the director [Nick Hamm] didn’t want me to meet him because I was doing a ridiculous version of Neil McCormick, and he didn’t want Neil to get upset about it. But I think it’s good fun, really. He’s a lot more sensible than I had imagined him, because I created him out of my ridiculous brain from reading the book. But I think that’s the point. It should be a fun, heightened, ridiculous version of this character, because that’s what makes it worthy of a movie.

There are plenty of people in the world who have tried to be rock stars and have not gotten there. That’s not interesting in itself. But because Neil was a friend of Bono’s and went to school with him, their lives were intertwined. And Neil’s book is very self-deprecating anyway. He’s poking fun at himself, so he’s got to be up for someone doing it as well. I think I’ve made him quite endearing as well. I think he comes off OK.

When did you first learn how to play musical instruments?

When I was at school, I was in choirs more than anything else, from a very young age, about 9 years old. And then I started taking drum lessons. And then I sort of went into acting through musicals, and the music faded into the background, and the acting came into the front. It’s nice to be able to use it when I can, like on a couple of jazz tracks on "Easy Virtue," and then this rock, silly punk stuff on "Killing Bono."

You definitely have range, because you sound like different singers on the "Easy Virtue" and "Killing Bono" tracks that you’ve sung. How would you describe your vocal style when you don’t have to sing for an acting project?

I’m not that kind of Bob Dylan, tortured creative. I don’t have a story in me that I must tell, but I do love to impersonate. And I do love lots of different styles of music.

I did some research to see what people are saying about you on message boards, and apparently there are quite a few people who want to see you play the Russian vampire Dimitri Belikov if the "Vampire Academy" books were ever made into movies. Have you heard about this?

No. "Vampire Academy"? I don’t know those books. [He says in a Russian accent] Dimitri!

And of course you’ve played a Russian before, in your 2008 movie "Bigga Than Ben." So would you be open to playing Dimitri Belikov if the opportunity came your way?

I like playing Russian. I made up my Russian accent [in "Bigga Than Ben"] completely just from living with ["Bigga Than Ben" co-star] Andrei Chadov while we shot the film, in a flat with a mattress on the floor. [He says in a Russian accent] And I just copied everything he did and everything he said.

Speaking of playing vampires, "Twilight" director Catherine Hardwicke says you were one of the final four actors to be considered for the role of Edward Cullen. We all know that Robert Pattinson ended up getting the role, but what were your "Twilight" auditions like?

There were quite a few auditions. I was the first person they kind of approached about it. It was all right. I very quickly read the first ["Twilight"] book. I really enjoyed it. I think Kristen Stewart is great. I think she’s a really good actress. And I really like Catherine Hardwicke.

But then there were two things: First off, they didn’t want to mix "Narnia" and "Twilight." I think it’s dangerous to mix characters from franchises while you’re doing one. So she definitely didn’t want Prince Caspian being Edward Cullen. It doesn’t make sense. And secondly, I’d still be shooting at age 30, playing 17, and nobody wants to see that. That would be kind of sad.

And course you wouldn’t want the kind of craziness with fans and paparazzi that Robert Pattinson has to deal with in his life.

So true!

For more info: "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" website

"Birdsong" website

"Killing Bono" blog

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