Isaac Hempstead-Wright doesn’t walk much on camera. As Bran on “Game of Thrones,” he’s been paralyzed since the beginning of Season One, and in his new film The Boxtrolls he got to hang out in what he calls a “tiny chocolate box of a studio” and record the dialogue for Laika’s third stop-motion animated feature. I ask him about that, and we also talk particle physics and the terrifying reclining chair of Sir Ben Kingsley in this exclusive CraveOnline interview.
[Note: There is one “Game of Thrones” spoiler ahead, but it’s right at the end, and we’ll warn you ahead of time.]
The Boxtrolls opens September 26, 2014.
Related: Sir Ben Kingsley on ‘The Boxtrolls’ (Exclusive Video)
CraveOnline: These things take so long to make. How long ago were you brought onto this?
Isaac Hempstead-Wright: I think it was about three years ago I first got onto it.
Was it a long audition process? What did they come to you with?
They came to me and I did a self tape, and then I got a callback and went to do an in-person audition. And then probably about a couple of weeks later I got the role. Actually I can’t entirely remember but I think we started filming a little bit after that.
The self tape, did they want you on camera or was it just audio?
No, it was just audio actually.
Was it a scene that ended up in the film?
I mean the script changed so much, but it was interesting, they were actually saying before they’d even got me to do the self-tape they got audio for me from “Game of Thrones,” and audio from Elle [Fanning], from a film she’d done, and audio from Sir Ben [Kingsley] and anyone else they were looking at, and sort of mixed it together to see how it would sound, just so they got the right kind of audio tone of us all together.
Did they ever come to you and say, “Let me tell you why you’re perfect for this?” Did they ever feed your ego a little bit, poking you for “Game of Thrones” spoilers?
[Laughs.]
Did they do any physical modeling of Eggs on you, or were you just doing the voice?
No, I was just doing the voice. We did notice that the character does look uncannily like me. [Laughs.] And they were saying it wasn’t entirely accidental. I think it slightly does look a bit like me.
Are you the kind of voice-actor where when you’re in the studio, you’re acting about [physically], acting out the whole thing to get you into the scene?
Yeah! Yeah, you certainly have to. To a certain extent you’re going a bit [gesticulates] wild but obviously you can’t jump up and down or anything because it ruins the take.
That blows. Did you have to record everything separately or did you get to record anything with Sir Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning?
Most of the time it was separate but I was lucky enough to do some scenes with Simon Pegg and Sir Ben and Elle, and you notice that you’re performance really changes, certainly, when you’re finally doing it with them. Because you always have another reader reading the lines but when you finally do it with another person who you’re actually going to be conversing with on-screen, then it kind of just feels a bit more real and you really get how it sounds.
What scenes did you get to really act with them? Maybe we can watch and tell the difference…
[Thinks.] I think we pretty much did every scene we were in together. I mean, near enough. So with Elle we did the scene where we met in the courtyard, which is in the trailer, and other scenes later on. So watch out for that one! [Laughs.]
You guys have a really funny chemistry together. I like her character a lot because she’s really mean.
Yeah, she’s feisty. She has a macabre fascination with grotesque things.
Did that translate on the set at all, or is she one of those people where you go, “Oh, she’s a sweetheart?”
[Laughs.] No, she certainly wasn’t asking about mountains of bones.
That’s a shame. Is it intimidating working with Ben Kingsley or does he make it easy?
No, absolutely it’s terrifying. [Laughs.] We’re in this tiny chocolate box of a studio in Oxford and he had his huge reclining chair which he uses to get the voice from the right place. So you’re kind of in three square inches of space and he’s there with his terrifying huge booming voice, in pretty dramatic scenes where he’s threatening to kill you or whatever, so it does feel rather terrifying.
It seems it would be a good position of power for him, to just be reclining.
[Laughs.] Yeah, it does!
Did you get to visit the set at all while they were stop-motioning everything?
I did, yeah. We were lucky enough to have this tour in the sort of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory of studios. And we were thinking the other day, they are really like the Boxtrolls because the Boxtrolls make all these incredible creations in their Boxtroll cavern, and Laika people, they make all these incredible creations in the cavern of their studio.
Did you steal a souvenir?
[Laughs.] I did actually! I got to create… because how they do it, is they have this rapid prototyping thing so when you’re doing the voice they’ll constantly be recording you, and the animators will take that and they’ll look at exactly how your face moves, and then for each frame they’ll 3D print a separate face, and then when they do the animation they take one face off, put the next one on, click, and then you get the illusion of the moving mouth. But I got to design my own little face myself and print it out, so I’m [makes funny face]. So I’ve got that sitting at home.
I should have taken a picture of that. That’s a good face.
Thanks! [Laughs.]
Three years ago Paranorman hadn’t come out yet…
Yeah, it was just before Paranorman we started filming.
So were you familiar with Coraline before that?
Yeah, I’d seen Coraline.
Were you a fan, or were you like, “This is crap, I never want to work with this company?”
No, I certainly didn’t think it was terrible. I don’t entirely think I remembered the plot or anything, but I’d certainly remember the film and how it was quite a dark and spooky one.
Had you always wanted to move into voice acting?
There’d never been a particular career decision. I just work with whatever was happening. So it was completely different…
Is that how your career goes? You just go with whatever is happening?
[Laughs.] Yeah?
So you weren’t even going to be an actor and then “Game of Thrones” came along?
Yeah!
Really?
Yeah! Yeah, yeah.
What were you going to do?
Well, I was only ten so I don’t think I had particularly designed my future yet. But I just got into it completely by accident. I went into a local drama group and I auditioned for “Game of Thrones” because they were doing an open casting…
That was the right drama group.
It was, wasn’t it?! [Laughs.] Because I was thinking, wow, that was immensely lucky.
That was opportune.
Yeah.
So when you were a kid and they asked you, because the only thing an adult can think to ask a child is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” what did you say?
I’ve always been interested in science. I think I probably would have got into [that], and still would like to, something to do with that.
Actor-slash-scientist.
Yeah.
What kind of science?
Physics.
Really?
Yeah.
I know nothing about that.
[Laughs.]
Are you a casual physicist? Or are you like…?
I like the particle physics.
Okay. That’s when there are particles, and you… physicate them?
It’s like… So you have nuclear physics, which is sort of atoms and nuclei interacting, but the you have particle physics, which tends to be in the actual atom. So then you have quarks and the leptons and the so on and so forth.
…Okay.
[“Game of Thrones” Spoiler Alert!]
At the end of “Game of Thrones” last season they said you’ll never walk again, which is very, very sad. When are we going to get to see you act and walk at the same time next?
[Laughs.]
Because I just saw you doing a voice-over, and I want to make sure your legs are fine. What’s the next thing?
There’s nothing really at the moment. I’m just kind of, again, seeing how it goes. Just go with it.
Aren’t you in Julius Caesar?
I don’t know if it’s materialized as an actual project.
That was just a rumor?
I think, yeah.
But there was an actual discussion about it?
Well, yeah, they said that they’d like me to do it but I don’t think it’s actually happening.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
