Anna's Narnia adventure

2:26pm Tuesday 6th December 2005

Anna Popplewell, a pupil at North London Collegiate School in Edgware, plays a lead role in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a movie adaptation of the classic CS Lewis children's book, which critics are already predicting to be as big as The Lord of the Rings films.

Anna plays Susan Pevensie, the eldest of four siblings who are evacuated from their Finchley home during the Second World War and enter a wardrobe which is a gateway to the magical winter- wonderland of Narnia.

Having just come back from a two-week promotional tour of the film in New York, she still finds it all a little strange. "The other day I saw myself on a packet of Cheerios," she said. "It is very bizarre. It's strange for about 20 seconds and then it goes away. I've got brothers and sisters to keep me in my place."

Her two younger siblings, Laura and Freddie, who she lives with in Hampstead, are both actors in their own right, with Freddie playing the role of Michael Darling in the 2003 movie version of Peter Pan.

For Anna, filming on the first Narnia adaptation possibly the first of seven began last year with six months spent in New Zealand, from summer until Christmas, and then a few extra months in Poland and Prague.

"I've never spent so long on a film, but people came out to see me. I'm firmly back into reality now, and it's sometimes like it never happened," she said.

"I was initially worried about missing out on friends and school, but I don't feel I missed out on anything. Making this film was a kind of education within itself."

It seems switching back into school life, having missed almost a year, and heading straight back into revision for her GCSEs wasn't going to stop her doing well at the end of filming she got 10A*s at GCSE at her school, in Canons Drive. With her feet firmly on the ground, she has no long-term thespian ambitions at this stage.

"I'd like to go to University to study English," she said.

On top of everything else she still makes time to see some of her friends, and slots in pastimes such as playing the cello, learning sign-language, teaching younger pupils art classes and playing lacrosse rather badly'.

Anna was cast from more than 2,000 hopefuls, the whole process of auditions taking more than a year and a half, during which she went through readings, castings, screen tests and meetings with the directors.

"I first auditioned when I was 13 and I'm nearly 17 now, so it was a long process. They had to find people who fitted well together."

Of course, it wasn't just finding actors who gelled, but also about talents.

Anna has worked on films such as Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) and has the ability to act out even the most challenging of scenes. Take the one in her latest movie where Aslan (the lion) has to sacrifice himself and Anna is forced to turn on the waterworks.

"Some people think of something that's hard for them such as a close, personal loss; others need to throw themselves into the character completely and feel what they are feeling; others can just turn it on. I'm one of those who can turn it on it means I can be quite manipulative really," she joked.

She also said that she did not expect quite so much bluescreen work (acting against a blue or green screen so a background could be added later by a computer).

"I had to act to tennis balls a lot of the time, and things on sticks."

However, much to her dismay, the mice they used on set were real, so one of the body doubles had to be used to handle the furry foes.

"I have a phobia of mice. Everything else was animated, so I assumed they would animate the mice too. But they didn't. I'm absolutely terrified of them."

Anna's favourite scene to film was the battle scene, which she described as really atmospheric'.

To many critics, CS Lewis's tale particularly about Aslan's self-sacrifice is an allegory of the story of Christ. Anna, a Christian, said: "With any art form you get very different interpretations. Some people are aware of allegory being there, but others won't know about the Christian message so won't relate to that. You see it if you want to, if you're aware of it."

Fans of the original book will know that the Pevensie children are not from Finchley, but they are in the film. According to Anna, the line, we're not heroes, we're from Finchley' was added as a bit of fun. "It brings home the Britishness of the film. It's mostly a British cast, and everything from British countryside to a giant replica of Paddington station is there."