Date:29/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/29/stories/2008032957292000.htm

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Blistering barnacles! It’s Spielberg’s Tintin

Mark Brown

London: For those who remember, he was the young boy who gets the girl in the film Love Actually. For those who don’t, Thomas Sangster may yet become a household name.

The schoolboy from south London has been chosen by Steven Spielberg to be his Tintin for a three-movie adaptation of the boy reporter’s adventures. The trilogy is likely to give the 17-year-old the same profile as Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, or Elijah Wood, who shot to international stardom as Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings series.

Spielberg has been working with Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, on how to bring Tintin to life. Now the production has taken another significant step with the casting of Sangster, alongside Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the adaptation of Tolkien’s books, as Captain Haddock.

Both actors spent a week in Los Angeles before Easter running through scenes for Spielberg and Jackson; work begins in earnest in September, with a view to releasing the first film in 2010.

Sangster admitted that he had not read Tintin until a few days ago. He said:

“But I’ve always loved the cartoons. I never saw the books because I was never that big on reading. When I was really young I watched some episodes and loved it.”

Many people will recognise Sangster as Liam Neeson’s son in Richard Curtis’s Love Actually or the oldest child in the care of Emma Thompson’s Nanny McPhee, but his curriculum vitae includes roles of varying sizes in 13 films. A child of theatrical parents, Sangster is soon to undertake A-levels in art and media studies.

Sangster’s agent originally sent a tape to Spielberg as part of an audition for a mini-series of Stephen King’s The Talisman, which never got off the ground. Spielberg saw the tape and realised he had found his Tintin.

The stories will be filmed using the latest 3D technology, which is regarded as the next frontier of moviemaking. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008