Other Titles • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe • The Chronicles of Narnia • more
“In folklore, fauns were followers of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and intoxication. They were merry, mischievous creatures and I wanted to reflect that,” McAvoy explains. “There’s also a very English feel to the way Tumnus is written. That’s something C.S. Lewis did on purpose—undeniably wrote him in a very certain type of English voice. I took the tone of Mr. Tumnus’ voice from the goat in him, but the accent came from the man half of him.” From the waist down, Tumnus is all CGI, but in order to best emulate how a man-goat might walk, McAvoy learned to walk on his toes for the cameras. “They couldn’t have me walking around as a normal guy because my upper body would look strange on these hind goat legs,” he remarks. “So, I had to walk about a million different ways, then look back on the computer and see which one method worked!”
To complete the transformation from man to faun for the film, Adamson relied on the talents of the visual effects wizards led by VFX supervisor Dean Wright. The process, which Wright simply calls “leg replacement,” was first used in Robert Zemeckis’ 1994 Oscar® winner, “Forrest Gump” (for the character of Sgt. Dan, the maimed Vietnam vet played by Gary Sinise). Wright, employing recent and more sophisticated computer software, used “green screen pants” on McAvoy to create the illusion of a two-legged goat, matching the movement of his computer graphics to that of McAvoy’s gait.
Even with all the preparation needed to bring Tumnus to life, director Adamson insisted that, like a bride before her wedding, actress Georgie Henley should not get a glimpse of what the faun character looked like until the last possible minute, so her reactions of wonder and delight would be entirely authentic. “Andrew always wanted to amaze me so he kept me from seeing the faun and the White Witch so that I would react in a very convincing way,” says Henley, “and it worked!” Jadis, the White Witch
The greatest villain in Narnia is Jadis, the seemingly invincible White Witch who has cursed the one-time paradise to endure an eternal winter. To play the nefarious and chilly role, the filmmakers embraced executive producer Perry Moore’s suggestion of veteran Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, one of the mainstays of European cinema. “I’ve been a fan of Tilda since I saw her in ‘Orlando,’” Adamson says of his leading lady, whose pale complexion and ethereal beauty added dramatic dimension to the imposing creature she plays in the film. “In addition to her physical stature, which suits the character perfectly, she brings a strength, intensity and intelligence—all characteristics I wanted for the White Witch. After all, she has to be as smart, as strong and as intense as Aslan the Lion in her confrontations with him.” He continues: “I think the guiding principle for both of us was avoiding cliché. When C.S. Lewis wrote this book, the character of the White Witch was somewhat original but that was 55 years ago. Now we have seen so many evil queens and witches, from Cruella De Ville onwards. So we wanted to stay away from cartoonish, cackling figures. Instead, what we wanted was a more human type of evil, something a little darker and more real, and I knew Tilda had the sophistication to pull that off. It was a big challenge. Ultimately, Tilda created a really convincing witch who evokes pure icy coldness.”
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