by Andy Gibbons

Now I know it’s not really the done thing to doorstep actors to talk about their upcoming projects but when I saw Ben Barnes (aka Prince Caspian) wandering down the road round the corner from my house this morning, I couldn’t not take the opportunity to quiz him very briefly about the upcoming third film in the Narnia series, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader. Graciously he didn’t have a problem with me interviewing him in the middle of the street and here’s what we discussed….

With the trailer for The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader debuting this week the buzz has really started, it promises to be a big Christmas release….

Yeah, I hope it is. Personally I’m quite excited that it’s going to be 3D. It’s my favourite of the seven books, I think it’s one of the best stories and it’s got some good human characters as well – I think Eustace, who Will Poulter plays brilliantly, is a really funny character. It’s got a lot of the fun magical stuff of the first ones and I’ve got some fun action stuff which is cool. It’s going to be good I think.

We saw our first glimpse of footage this week with the trailer (you can watch it below) but we don’t see much of you in it. Have you seen it and how do you think it reflects the film?

I have seen it and I think they’ve done the right thing in trying to show the scope of it and trying to show the different things in it. Obviously I was the focus of the marketing campaign of the middle film so it’s probably not very sensible to do the same thing again.

So is there less pressure on your shoulders this time round?

Yeah, I’m off the hook a bit on this one.

You’ve got a new director in Michael Apted – what’s he brought to the movie?

Just a sort of an outside eye and a very human touch really. I think he was as anxious as any of us going in to it. When we first met and spoke he told me how anxious he was about the scale of it but I think he did a great job and I think it’s going to have an interesting flavour to it. Saying that I haven’t seen it yet.

This is the first Narnia film without Disney behind it (Twentieth Century Fox partnered up with Walden Media after Disney dropped the franchise) – did that affect production at all?

Fox were very hands on during the whole process which was completely expected and understandable. It’s nice that, in a way, to have someone who really cares about it – not that Disney didn’t, it was obviously very precious to them too – but in terms of people going to see them film, apart from the logo at the beginning I don’t think it’s going to make a huge amount of difference.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is due in cinemas on December 10th 2010.