It was two solid months of horse riding, sword fighting and training

The Kid Who Would Be King is a modern telling of the legend of King Arthur. LAURA meets the cast to find out about repurposing the tale for a new audience

BUILDING site in modern-day London is probably one of the last places you might expect to find the Sword in the Stone.

But that is where schoolboy Alex stumbles across Excalibur in the family film The Kid Who Would Be King, a new telling of the legend of King Arthur and his knights, directed by The Adam And Joe Show’s Joe Cornish.

It follows a group of kids, who must band together to get a handle on old school magic, to take on a wicked enchantress.

“The idea behind this movie is that myths and legends, like the story of King Arthur, don’t have a huge amount of basis in historical fact,” Joe says.

“They’re written and rewritten to suit the needs of the time and, in fact, it’s important that different generations rewrite legends anew for themselves. So, when I wrote this script, that was at the forefront of my mind, that I could take what I wanted from existing mythology and use it in the way that I wanted.”

Indeed the film sees Alex – played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis – and his friends, unite with the wizard Merlin and stage a large-scale battle in their school.

It’s a big part for a 14-year-old, but Louis comes from the perfect acting stock, as the son of Andy Serkis, of Lord Of The Rings and Black Panther fame.

“This has been amazing, because normally I’m not the one acting, it’s him, and it’s pretty cool showing him what I can do,” the teenager says with a grin.

But it’s down to his mum, the actress Lorraine Ashbourne, that he is sitting here today.

“I actually had two auditions. I came in my school football uniform for the first one and screen tested. I had just been playing football and my mum was like, ‘Come home, you’ve got an audition’. I didn’t know anything about it, so I just rushed off to the audition in my kit.

“Next thing I knew, I had two months of just horse riding and sword fighting and training, which is where we all bonded as a cast.”

Another star who immersed himself in preparation was Angus Imrie, who takes on the part of Alex’s teacher, the wizard Merlin, and who embarked on the 20-mile walk the young knights take in the movie, from Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor to Tintagel.

He camped alone on the moor overnight and spent all day walking without a map, before arriving at Merlin’s Cave for a swim in the sea.

“I wanted to get a sense of the landscape, because it’s so important for Arthurian legend, Tintagel and Cornwall. When we filmed it, I really sensed this king of pagan, ancient land.”

But that’s not where the preparation ended. Merlin is a part he shares with Sir Patrick Stewart, who plays the older incarnation of the wizard when he wants to have authority in front of the children.

“We spent time practising to try and bring our voices in tune together, and the way Merlin stands, that was a big thing,” Angus says.

“His body is very different from any other person, he’s on his own, he’s from different parts of history and he’s brought them all into this unique being, so we tried to bring them in sync with each other.”

The challenge of creating that dynamic with another actor who was playing the same role was also a big part of the draw for Sir Patrick: “We met, and we had a few little experiments that we tried. We both found a passage of Shakespeare that we knew, and so we spoke it in unison, with each of us trying to imitate the other’s voice. I’d never done anything like that before and it was a fascinating exercise.”

There were also new challenges in the film for The Greatest Showman star Rebecca Ferguson, who plays the evil shape-shifting sorceress Morgana, King Arthur’s half-sister, who believes the sword is rightfully hers.

She was suggested for the role by her Mission: Impossible – Fallout co-star Simon Pegg, who is a frequent collaborator with Joe.

“I met Joe and he told me the story he had been working on since he was young, and I said, ‘I am signing on without reading the script,’ she says.

“That is literally how it went and then I read the script and thought, ‘Oh what have I done?”’

She laughs. “No, that’s not how it was. But I did sign on without checking the script, that’s how much I loved it.”

And it’s a good thing she did love it, because the role of Morgana involved four hours of make-up every day, with many scenes where she is literally welded to a subterranean tree.

“I had seen storyboards and mood boards of her transformation from Morgana into a dragon, and I was just excited, I wanted to go further.

“I’ve never had real prosthetics made, and all of these beautiful, intricate vines and veins that they put on my body, they’re incredible!

“It was such a different part, because I worked with Alex Reynolds, who’s a movement coach who works with Eddie Redmayne on basically everything he does, and she had me create this beautiful silhouette, this kind of a Cruella de Vil character. And the sets they put me in were incredible; they built entire caves. And the tree I’m in and the lava running, and skeletons and swords – it was all there, there was no green screen.

“Villainous parts like this don’t come as often. Normally, we play human beings and normal people and everyone has their black and white sides, dark, light, grey, whilst here I was playing an evil medieval antagonist.” ■ The Kid Who Would Be King is in UK cinemas now.