Standing tall, this space cadet is a fighting force to reckon with

MAYBE it was the alligator sausages and all the Southern soul food Asa Butterfield (left) consumed while he was filming Ender’s Game in New Orleans that caused the 16-year-old to shoot up three inches in a matter of weeks.

Asa plays Ender, a super-bright schoolboy of the future who is sent to military cadet school to be trained to fight aliens in the thrilling sci-fi blockbuster based on Orson Scott Card’s stories.

The teenager admitted that he became addicted to the Louisiana food. ‘So spicy!’ he joked, licking his lips.

Also, he and the cast worked up a big appetite. ‘We had to be super-fit because of all the action sequences. We did running and combat training,’ he explained.

In the film, Ender is being trained for a leadership role — taught to display the kind of qualities that will make his charges follow him into what they think is a mock battle. Asa enjoyed hanging out with fellow leading men Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley. But the majority of his time was spent with the younger actors — though they weren’t allowed to go to bars. ‘We had fun, but we behaved ourselves,’ he said.

Asa did a lot of background homework before shooting started, reading about boy soldiers in Africa.

‘It’s not right that Ender is used as a weapon to wage war, just as it’s not right the way the boy soldiers are coerced i nto f i ghting battles they don’t understand,’ he said.

Asa shot to fame in the film The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. He made that movie when he was just 11 — and tiny.

‘Acting was never something I strove for then. I wanted to be an archaeologist and find remains of dinosaurs,’ he recalled. ‘And then, when I was making Hugo, I realised I was working with Martin Scorsese and all these famous actors, and I started to take it more seriously.’

Now he’s in it for the long haul and mastering his craft, right before our eyes.