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This morning, Asa Butterfield and Ben Kingsley were on ITV’s breakfast show Daybreak promoting Ender’s Game. Our readers in the UK can watch the video HERE on ITVplayer!

I wasn’t able to download it, but I hope it will turn up on Youtube soon. In the meantime, here are some quick summaries as well as the best bits, or at least the ones containing information that you may not have heard yet anywhere else.

Asa Butterfield:

First, they showed some scenes from the trailer and from the clip where Ender is given Dragon Army. They then talk about the scene and the dynamics between Graff and Ender:

Host: Asa Butterfield … taking a break from his A-levels to take on Harrison Ford. … And you stare the man down in this, too.
Asa: I do, yeah. It’s … It was quite interesting how at the start of the film he is quite dominant over me in terms of military power, but by the end of it, as you said, we sort of stand eye to eye, and that’s really exciting.

Two of the hosts had seen the movie and were impressed with Asa’s performance. They go on talking about

• what it was like working with Harrison Ford
• training for the zero G scenes
• how Asa managed schooling on set (he had a tutor who kept in touch with his school, and he had to take his GCSEs at the British Academy in Houston while filming)
• how he is really a normal kid who plays video games and hangs out with his mates

Nothing new there, really. The Hostess then tells a story about how her little boy plays with Asa’s little sister in the park, and how his mother had told her “he’s doing quite well” and then she found out he was actually a major star. It’s really a cute little interview, but as far as actual news or new insights go, you won’t miss all that much.



Sir Ben Kingsley:

Sir Ben was on a bit later. The clip they showed was the one where Mazer yells at Ender for losing a battle. Sir Ben then talks about how he is always a bit “gobsmacked” when he sees himself on screen because he tends to forget about scenes as soon as they are done. He then goes on to explain the tattoos, how he went through make-up, and how the other cast members looked at him sort of curiously when he came out. He talks about Asa, the major themes of the movie, and how he keeps his awards in his little library at home, interspersed with the books. Here are the best (and most revealing) bits:

On Asa and his performance:

Host: I must confess, again, that young lad, Asa Butterfield – I must confess I never heard of him until yesterday – what an actor!
Sir Ben: He’s in Hugo with me. And in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. He’s extraordinary. He’s very focused. He humbles himself to the job. And he has all his priorities perfectly placed.
[…]
Host: Speaking of young people, you surprised some young people in London the other day. You and your costars. …
Sir Ben: That was a shot in the arm. I love being with those kids. They were so enthusiastic. They’d seen a lot of clips from the film. And I think they empathized with the character; I think that Asa will provide a bridge for a lot of people, in his performance, who are struggling with those very difficult years from adolescence to young adulthood.

On the themes of the movie:

Host: There’s a lot of themes in it. One of them is bullying, for example, and the other is really, at the end of it, the morality of war, isn’t it.
Ben: The morality of war, or the immorality of war, however you look at it, and when you align that with, what I find very touching in our film, the young want to please. However obfuscated and blurred that might become, the fact is that they want to get it right, they want to join, they want to be part of the bigger picture, the bigger tribe or whatever. And you do find in Asa’s performance, in the young actors’ performances, that when they hit those targets, when they “get it right”, they are delighted. They just simply want to please. It’s the older generation who take advantage of that willingness in them to please.

Sounds about right to me. What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

Source: ITV Daybreak