Asa Butterfield did several press interviews while at CinemaCon 2013 and the latest to come out is one from io9. They focused their talk mainly on the Battle Room, but also touched a bit upon Ender and Valentine. As an added bonus, Asa casually drops a mention about the mind game!
The cast was trained by an astronaut, who came to teach them about how one really moves in zero gravity.
“You have to move really slowly… fluidly and smoothly. When you’re in the harnesses to stop yourself from falling at the waist, which is where they’re connected, you have to be tensed up. So keeping actions smooth whilst having your whole body completely tensed is surprisingly difficult.”
Asa also talks about Ender’s age, which had previously been speculated to be anywhere from 10 to 15. In the interview he mentions that the cast had to be aged up to 13 to 14.
“You can’t find — at least as not that I’m aware — a six-year-old actor that can play that sort of a character, it’s complex and it’s physically demanding. That was the first issue, so they changed it from being six to 13 or 14.”
When asked what he thought was Ender’s hardest form of psychological torture, he mentioned Ender’s separation from Valentine.
“Probably one of the hardest scenes for Ender was leaving his sister, back on Earth. I think that’s one of the things that really damaged him. As you can see in the mind game, as well.”
I’ve read that there were lake scenes in the trailer, so that’s possibly the goodbye people mentioned rather than their initial goodbye. There’s a lot more to the interview, so be sure to check it out at io9.
