Meeting The Family

The Pevensie children couldn't have been better cast. William Moseley plays Peter, who must lead an army. Anna Popplewell plays cautious Susan. Skandar Keynes is devious Edmund. And Georgie Henley is openhearted little Lucy. On the set in New Zealand, the cast gave one of its first interviews to NEWSWEEK's Jeff Giles.

SKANDAR KEYNES, 14: You don't want me --trust me!

SKANDAR: Lots of stuff.

ANNA POPPLEWELL, 16: We gave him a huge surfing rucksack and DVDs and stuff.

WILLIAM MOSELEY, 18 [ Laughing ]: We also added something very, very... polite.

SKANDAR: No, no, that's the end of the story!

ANNA: William and I had a bit of a joke.

SKANDAR: I think I hear my mum calling.

ANNA: Georgie's and my costumes have all this long, authentic 1940s underwear. One day we were hot and complaining, and I said, "Oh, I've got so much underwear on!" Skandar had this look on his face like he was not comfortable.

GEORGIE HENLEY, 10: It was a very uncomfortable conversation.

WILLIAM: Skandar has girls' disease, which is a, um, mild form of hating all women.

SKANDAR: No, I don't! Just people who are older and scarier.

ANNA: Anyway, ever since, we've teased Skandar about his phobia of women's underwear. So for his birthday we chose the pinkest, tackiest, smallest G-string we could find and wrapped it in pink tissue paper.

WILLIAM: The look on his face was the same look that the White Witch uses to turn creatures into stone.

ANNA: I was 7 when I read them.

SKANDAR: I was 8.

GEORGIE: I was 6.

ANNA: Georgie's very smart.

WILLIAM: Georgie's a very good reader. One of the assistant directors will come up and say, "OK, school time, everyone," and Skandar and I will roll our eyes. And the girls will be like...

ANNA and GEORGIE: "Yaaaaaaay!"[ Laughter ]

SKANDAR: Anything that has blood and guts. "Saving Private Ryan" was heaven.

ANNA: Oh, that was so good!

SKANDAR: Yeah, he's great.

GEORGIE: And the thing is, he worked on "Batman and Robin" on visual effects. He's great with computers. It's a bit difficult to branch out to people.

WILLIAM: For me, it's not really about that. It's more about being here. How many people want to do what we're doing? We're so lucky.

ANNA: Yeah, the movie's going to be awesome. Everyone has to go see it!

WILLIAM [ Laughing ]: Oh, shut up, Anna.

ANNA: I'm just doing my little promo!