When Ben Barnes saw the final cut of Prince Caspian for the first time in New York two weeks ago, he did what many people do after watching a 2½-hour movie … and drinking a large soda. He headed for the men's room.

Nothing unusual there. What was unique, though, were the throngs of teenage girls waiting outside the theater, practically ambushing the handsome Barnes—who plays Caspian's title character—and co-star William Moseley in their short trip to the "loo," as they call it back home in England.

Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian

Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian

Barnes, in his first major feature, and Moseley—who plays Peter Pevensie and was already a bit of a teen idol back home in England—politely pushed their way through the gawking girls and made it safely into the bathroom to take care of business.

Meeting with members of the media the next morning, Barnes was still snickering about the previous evening's events.

"Yeah," he chuckled, "I had to break the shocking news to the fans: Even Prince Caspian gotta pee."

If Barnes, 26, doesn't make it as a movie star, he could consider a second career as a stand-up comic. In two interviews with CT Movies (a couple months ago on the phone, and again recently in New York), he had his questioners in stitches on several occasions—especially when talking about his sudden fame, which is about to explode with Caspian's worldwide release this Friday.

Barnes' face is the dominant image on the movie poster, plastered everywhere these days. You've probably seen him on any of the countless TV spots in recent weeks. And, of course, he'll soon be in a toy store near you as a bona fide action figure—a concept that has Barnes shaking his head.

The Prince Caspian action figure

The Prince Caspian action figure

"Scary, isn't it?" he says. "It's exciting when you hear you're going to be an action figure, but when you think about it, you realize that what this entails is probably some 6-year-old smashing my head against a table! That's what I did with my Transformers and my He-Man! I was like, 'Fight each other!' Little kids chewing on them, that's the reality of it. And people will be playing the video game yelling, 'Die, Caspian, die!' That's what's going to happen."

Beneath the humor is a young man who is very serious about this role for a number of reasons. He's playing one of his childhood heroes—Barnes has been a Narnia fan since he first read the books with his dad at the age of 8—and, as a student of children's literature at Kingston University, he has had the opportunity to dig deeper into the books than most. So he comes to the role both as a giddy young fanboy and as a grown man who sees the character more philosophically.

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"I was a massive fan of the books as a kid," he says, "so it was something I grew up with. From that point of view, Caspian had some sort of iconic status with me. But another thing that draws me to his character is that he's not a prototypical action hero. He's just a boy struggling to come to terms with his own growing up and his place in the world.

"It might seem like reading too much into it, but I sort of read the story as almost Hamlet-ian. Caspian's father has been killed by his uncle [for anyone who's read the book, that's not a spoiler] and he spends the rest of the film trying to deduce whether vengeance is going to be the best policy for him. In the process, he's forced to become a leader, and he's forced to re-direct his animosity."

When asked about the spiritual themes that author C. S. Lewis weaves throughout the Narnia books, Barnes is even more philosophical.

"It's definitely something I've thought about," he says. "But I think it's dangerous to think about that when you're shooting the movie, because we're making a contemporary film for a 2008 audience, for people who don't necessarily know the books or are not necessarily interested in that side of it—and we still want it to be exciting for those people.

Caspian and Peter at Aslan's How

Caspian and Peter at Aslan's How

"As for the spiritual themes, I'm not a fan of spoon-feeding themes in films. I find myself patronized very easily by those kinds of films. But when I watch a film, I always ask, 'What's the point? What's the message?' And I don't think in this film there's one specific clear message. There's a lot of little messages about self-belief, belief in the people around you, and having faith in something bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily have to give it a name."

Barnes, a bit of a history buff, said the story also shed more light on the state of the world at the time Lewis wrote the book—just a few years after World War II.

"The historical context became even more vivid to me while watching the film," he says. "There's this race [the evil Telmarines, who have taken over Narnia] with a dictator who wants his race to go forward at the expense of all others. This film is set during the second World War, and you see remnants of that [Nazi Germany] all through it. But all of it—the historical element, the spirituality—is there if you choose to see it, and you can judge the film on whatever level you want to."

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Die-hard Narnia fans may judge the film more meticulously than others, and one issue that they've discussed is Barnes's age. He's 26, and students of the books argue that Caspian was either 13-ish, 17-ish, or somewhere in between.

Barnes rightly notes that the book never gives Caspian's age, but only hints at it.

"It only says that when Peter first sees Caspian, he's described as 'a boy about Peter's age,' and Peter was probably an older teen at that time," says Barnes. "But William Moseley [who plays Peter] is 21 now, and they needed someone who looked a similar age. And then you've got Voyage of the Dawn Treader [coming in 2010, with Barnes again playing Caspian], where Caspian has become a young man and he's leading a ship."

Barnes takes the nitpickers in stride.

"There's very little you can do to quell the wrath of the stalwart fan," he says, "but hopefully, they'll be able to enjoy the movie as much as anyone else. We honestly have tried to be as faithful to the book as possible. Besides," he adds with a laugh, "I was only 25 when I made the film! And I'm very immature, so it's okay!"

Barnes was offered the role after director Andrew Adamson had searched for almost a year for the right person. When Adamson saw Barnes perform at London's National Theatre in The History Boys, he knew he'd found his lead actor. Five weeks later, Barnes was in New Zealand filming his first major motion picture.

He had to gently "earn" his way into what was already a tight-knit family—Adamson and the four young actors who play the Pevensie siblings (Moseley as Peter, Anna Popplewell as Susan, Skandar Keynes as Edmund, and Georgie Henley as Lucy). Those four had worked together, with Adamson, for several years, and then here comes Barnes, the new guy, to steal some of their thunder.

Barnes had to find his way into this new 'family'

Barnes had to find his way into this new 'family'

Barnes says he had heard that they had bonded like family when making 2005's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, but was skeptical that it was anything more than warm and fuzzy publicity—till he arrived on the set.

"I was very cynical at first about this whole 'family' thing," he says. "When I first got the part, I got the DVD of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and watched all the bonus materials. And there's Georgie [Henley], saying [he mimics her sweet voice perfectly], 'We're like a family, and Will's like my big brother, and Andrew's like my dad when my dad's not there.' And you just think, Get me a bucket! It's not gonna BE like that!

"But then I got there, and I walked into the branch office, and they're playing table tennis with each other, and Georgie's sitting in Will's lap, and they were sharing ice cream, and it was just like something out of, you know … Disney! So it really is like that!"

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Barnes is laughing as he recounts this story—and so are his listeners.

He also gets a kick out of telling how he developed his accent for the film. The day before his audition, Barnes learned that Adamson wanted the Telmarines to speak with an invented dialect—speaking English but with a Spanish accent. Barnes scrambled to think of something he could use a model. Then he popped in his DVD of The Princess Bride, and closely studied—who else?—the character of Spanish swashbuckler Inigo Montoya, played so marvelously by Mandy Patinkin.

"It was the only thing that jumped into my mind," says Barnes, "because I've seen it at least 20 times!"

You killed my father! Prepare to die!'

You killed my father! Prepare to die!'

In the Prince Caspian movie, there is a point where the young prince finds his uncle—the evil King Miraz who had killed Caspian's father—unarmed and defenseless. It's an opportunity for Caspian to take revenge, but he does not. When filming that scene, Barnes was tempted to modify one of the most famous lines in film history:

"Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"

But Barnes stuck to the script—albeit with a line that's not too far off from Inigo's.

In the end, Barnes says they've made a movie that he thinks Narnia fans will enjoy.

"I've always been a huge fan of the books," he says, "and I don't think there's anything that's incongruous with the book that fans know and love. I think that once they see it, they'll like it."

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