At the heart of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE are the many spellbinding characters and creatures who came to life in C.S. Lewis’ beloved tale – from the four young children who are transported from war-torn London into Narnia to the incredible mythical menagerie of fauns, centaurs, giants, satrys, dwarves, minotaurs, minoboars and talking animals they meet on their life-changing journey.

The filmmakers’ first and most vital task was to start with the cornerstone of humanity in the film -- the four Pevensie children, who take the audience along with them as they discover that a mysterious old wardrobe door is a portal into a land like no other. As casting began, the filmmakers knew one thing: it was essential that the children be as utterly, viscerally real as Narnia is fantastical.

Executive producer Perry Moore explains the approach taken in the search for the children: "What makes this story so unique is that it's about real people. When you think of Narnia, you think of creatures, effects and spectacular dream-lands. But this is all grounded in the reality of a true family. So while there are a lot of great child actors in Hollywood, we made it very clear that we wanted real kids!"

The filmmakers sought the services of veteran casting director Pippa Hall and thus began a two-year hunt throughout England, during which Hall visited endless grade schools, youth clubs and drama groups, interviewing over 2,000 children for the four roles. "I took a video camera everywhere, sitting kids down to get them to talk about themselves, what their favorite books were, what films they liked," Hall recalls. "I would then send Andrew loads of tapes and he'd watch them all and that’s how we cast the Pevensies.”

Peter Pevensie
The eldest of the Pevensie kids is Peter, who leaves London a child yet becomes a brave, grown-up leader fighting for the forces of good while in Narnia. To bring Peter to life, Pippa Hall always had in mind eighteen-year-old William Moseley, who makes his feature film debut. Hall first saw Moseley seven years ago and had never forgotten him. "William's is a fairy-tale story," Hall elaborates. "I met William when he was eleven, when I was casting another film in Gloustershire, near where he lives. He was too old for that part, but I still thought he was extraordinary, that he had something special. I thought of William as Peter as soon as I read the script."

Being about the same age as his character, Moseley immediately related to Peter’s transformation in the course of his adventures in Narnia. "To put it simply, when Peter steps through the wardrobe, he's a boy. When Peter steps back out of the wardrobe, as the story finishes, he's a man,” the teenager says. “And, for me, I think I also became a man throughout the making of this film. Like Peter, I'm the oldest in my family. Like Peter, I strive a lot of the time for what's right, what's just. I think that's the reason each of the kids was cast for these parts -- we're so like the characters we play."

"What really impressed me about William is that he grew into a young man as we were making the film," Adamson chimes in. So, I basically saw William grow from this fifteen-year-old boy to this young man, this real warrior, just as Peter Pevensie does in Narnia.”

Susan Pevensie
For the role of Susan, the beautiful, down-to-earth elder daughter, who tries to be the responsible one during the children's journey through Narnia, the filmmakers selected the most seasoned cast member among the four children -- London-born actress Anna Popplewell, whose credits already include "Girl with A Pearl Earring," "Mansfield Park" and "The Little Vampire." Popplewell was among the very first performers put on tape by casting director Hall, and quickly caught co-producer Douglas Gresham's attention. "I looked at these kids and immediately picked Anna for Susan," he says. "She is not only beautiful, she's also extraordinarily talented, and she brought the role to life in a really original way."

"In many ways, Anna Popplewell, playing the part of Susan, had the hardest part of the four kids," producer Mark Johnson continues. "Her character has to be the reasonable, sensible one, but Anna presents her in a dynamic way that allows the audience to really feel and comprehend the danger and apprehension that these four children experience in Narnia. It's a testament to how good Anna's performance is that we expanded the part of Susan. We gave her more scenes, more dialogue, because Anna made her character so integral to the adventure of the movie."

Popplewell, who recently turned 17, was very clear on what Susan goes through on an emotional level in Narnia. "Each of the characters in THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE has their own journey, and Susan's no different," she says. "Like Peter, she feels the obligation of looking after her younger brother and sister, and it’s something that has made her grow up too fast – being saddled with all that responsibility. When she comes to Narnia, she thinks she's too grown up to believe in it. But, through this adventure, she becomes more open to the idea of being in this magical land. By the end, it's changed her for the better and she becomes unafraid of being a child. It’s a real journey for her."

Edmund Pevensie
Young Edmund is the most boisterous and mischievous of the Pevensie family and, once in Narnia, finds himself dangerously tempted to join forces with the White Witch. To portray the playful little rascal who learns to do the right thing, the filmmakers struggled to find the right actor, and didn’t discover Skandar Keynes until the very last moment.

"Edmund is probably the most developed character in the book, and he was in some ways the easiest to know what to look for, but the hardest to find," Adamson comments. “Then along came Skandar and he was, really bright, funny, energetic, just full of beans, and very wicked. He had a wonderful darkness in his eyes and was mischievous, sweet and adorable all at the same time. Those were the character traits I really wanted Edmund to have – to be able to pull off this darkness and still be lovable."

Hailing from a London family related to Charles Darwin, and the son of author Randall Keynes, Skandar impressed everyone on the set with his youthful smarts and wisdom. Now 14, he had first read THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE as an eight-year-old, which is also when he was first completely taken by Edmund. "I prefer my character over all the others. I really think I have the best character,” the young actor says with his typical bravado. “Of course, he’s a lot like me. He is the tyrant of the family, which I am, and, yep, he succumbs to temptation very easily. Edmund is the black sheep of the family, always teasing Lucy. But, in the end, Narnia makes him good. He goes through the most radical change, starts to appreciate his family. The adventure really changes him into a better person."

Lucy Pevensie
Completing the quartet of children is ten year-old Georgie Henley in the role of Lucy Pevensie, the youngest Pevensie and also the most optimistic, open-hearted and brave of them all, and who Adamson considers one of the story’s most important characters. “Lucy is the pure heart of the book. She's the one who first enters Narnia, the one who has to deal with the disbelief of her siblings, and the one who has to have the spunk and energy to still believe in herself,” he says. “Georgie Henley was just that. I knew from the moment I saw her on tape that she was Lucy, she was just so believable in her very first audition."

Pippa Hall discovered Henley out of the blue on a visit to a school in Yorkshire. Despite having no acting experience, Henley had something much more important – she was an unusually intelligent, articulate and emotional child with a huge love of books. Later, she became a constant surprise on the set. “She was so original in her approach to the part that she made us see the dialogue in new ways, ways we hadn’t even imagined it before,” comments producer Mark Johnson.

Like the other children, Georgie saw an immediate link between herself and her character. "Lucy is quite a lot like me in a way so it was very easy to slip into her character,” she says. “Lucy's the youngest of the four Pevensies, and nobody takes her opinions seriously as the story begins. When she opens this wardrobe, she's in a new world and she feels as though her feelings mean something there.”

With the children cast, Adamson’s next task was to bring them together as a close-knit family unit. "I wanted to create a strong family dynamic – but I couldn't have hoped for it to go as well as it did,” he notes. "I'm sure a part of what developed between them was because they were all so far away from home that they kind of glommed onto each other. Part of it was the mix of personalities that I picked. Yet it was almost magical how they began to seem like a real family of siblings during production."

To further help the children stay in the rhythm of the story, Adamson chose to shoot THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE entirely in chronological order – so that each new scene brought the young actors deeper into their characters and further into their discovery of Narnia.

Rounding out the Pevensie family is the family matriarch, played by New Zealand actress Judy McIntosh. It is she who must make the agonizing decision of sending her four children out to the country during the dangers of the London blitzkrieg. For McIntosh, a mother of three children herself, the small role was a very moving one, integral to the story’s impact. “Mrs. Pevensie is there to highlight the plight of these British evacuees during the War,” notes the actress “I think she provides an opportunity to kick-start the film with an emotional impact. When she says goodbye at the train station, she gives the children the responsibility to go out and make those adult decisions that she would normally have made for them."

Before Adamson led his film family into the magical world of Narnia, he cast two other key roles for the film's opening in war-torn England -- veteran New Zealand actress Elizabeth Hawthorne as Mrs. MacReady, the stern caretaker of the professor's country home where the children are evacuated; and Best Supporting Actor Oscar®-winner Jim Broadbent ("Iris," "Moulin Rouge!," "Gangs of New York”) as Prof. Kirke, whose home houses the magical wardrobe. With the human elements of the film in place, it was time to move into the magical realms of Narnia.