Hollywood Byte #47: Eragon
Jan 1, 2007
The British actor, who's only 19 years old, stepped into his first feature film experience with 20th Century Fox' $100 million fantasy epic, Eragon, based on the best-selling book by teenager Christopher Paolini.
The film's already recouped over $75 million worldwide theatrically and fans can explore the fantasy universe virtually with Vivendi Games' Eragon for Xbox 360, Xbox, PC, PlayStation, PSP, Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance. Speleers, along with actors Sienna Guillory (Resident Evil: Apocalypse), Garrett Hedlund (Troy), and Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting), reprised their roles for the game.
The book, film, and game are set in Alagaesia, a world ruled by an evil king. When a farm boy named Eragon happens upon a dragon's egg, he learns to become a dragon rider and sets out on a journey to restore peace to the land.
Speleers enjoyed his first foray into videogames as much as he did working on the Eragon movie.
"It was interesting," said Speleers. "It was different, but fun. The work was very repetitive. I kept having to do the same lines over and over again. And it was bizarre seeing myself transformed into this computer-generated character. I had a lot of fun making it with the guys at Vivendi Games."
Speleers said that in the recording booth, he was able to see a virtual representation of himself on a screen while he recorded his lines.
  |
"It looks like a good game, just from what I've seen in the creative process," said Speleers. "I know they've been making it as unique as game as possible. It's going to follow the line of the story from the film, but there will be places that we visited in the film that will be expanded upon for the game."
Eragon is one of a growing number of fantasy blockbusters, from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter, that allow gamers to jump into these rich worlds and dig deeper in an interactive environment.
"I think it's quite a great idea for fans of the film to be able to star as the hero of the game," said Speleers. "It's like when you play sports videogames, it brings back that feeling when you're a kid, you're running around playing soccer outside and you imagine you're your favorite soccer player. With the videogame, you get to do that, and now it's with movies as well. I think it's entertaining, but I hope they watch the movie first, of course."
Growing up in England, Speleers did spend some time playing videogames.
"I played videogames for a little bit," said Speleers. "I wasn't allowed to until I was a certain age because my family didn't want me stuck in a room bashing buttons all day long. Eventually I got PlayStation and PlayStation 2 and I got into that for a while. I still pick up a game every now and again. I spent a lot of time playing outside growing up, kicking a ball around or whatnot."
Although he didn't bring a PS2 on set with him for Eragon, his friends did.
"In between takes I was learning lines or having a chat with someone," said Speleers. "My friends actually brought one of their PS2s on set so that they could play FIFA in the trailer. I was so busy that I didn't really play. I was so busy on set and I was living my dream of being an actor, which is something I always wanted to do, so I wanted to be around the set at all times."
  |
During the long shoot, Speleers was able to explore new countries, including Hungary, Slovakia and Vancouver. He said he was lucky to have such epic scenery to work with, including sweeping valleys and mountains that served as backdrops to the story. One thing he did have to use his imagination for was interacting with Saphira, the dragon voiced by Rachael Weiss.
"I was working with a tennis ball most of the time in front of blue screen and that was pretty challenging, but I learned to enjoy it and learned to have fun with the experience," said Speleers. "The dragon was the tennis ball, so that's where I had to use my imagination. We didn't have a voice track there, so there was someone off to the side saying the lines. Rachael Weiss didn't come in until the end of the movie to voice Saphira."
Although working with an imaginary dragon was challenging, Speleers believes it pays off on the big screen.
"There's an emotional scene between Saphira and Eragon and it was pretty tough to film," said Speleers. "It could end up being one of the most rewarding in the movie. It was highly emotional and I had to do that with really nothing there."
Speleers read the Eragon book by pure chance a few years ago and he went back to re-read when he got the role. He said it was pretty bizarre when he went back to read it and visualized himself as the lead.
"I was familiar with the book before I got this role," said Speleers. "You can't just read a book and step into character. You'd have to be a bloody good actor to be able to do that. But certainly, it assisted me."
He understands the legions of fans who made the first two books of The Inheritance Trilogy best-sellers have high hopes for this film.
  |
"It's a privilege to play a role that has such a large following," said Speleers. "I just hope that people who loved the book loved the movie. We put a lot of time and effort into it. And I think it is such a good representation of the book. For me it was such a wonderful experience."
When asked what videogame fans would enjoy about the film, Speleers said the visual effects and action sequences of the film should appeal to this audience, but he thinks the movie, in general, the story-telling and everything about it, should appeal to them.
Since Eragon is the first of three books, Speleers is game to reprise his role a second time.
"There are a lot of things that I want to do, but if I got the opportunity to reprise this role in a sequel than I'd definitely do it," said Speleers. "I had so much fun making it I'd definitely want to experience that all over again."
One offshoot that might occur as the result of the Eragon movie and game is more dragons on the big, and small screen.
"Maybe now that we have the technology to make the dragon more believable and make it seem like an actual character is one of the reasons we'll likely see more fantasy films that feature dragons," said Speleers.
In addition to Eragon, Sony's working on Lair, a fantasy game that features dragons for PlayStation 3, which will be released in 2007. So it looks like gamers will be able to ride the skies for some time to come.
  |
The Hollywood Byte makes a weekly visit to the converging world of video games and traditional media.