Thomas Sangster, who played Liam Neeson's young son in Love Actually, has landed the role of Tintin in Steven Spielberg's three-movie adaptation of Hergé's famous boy reporter's adventures.
The sixth-former from south London is likely to get a Daniel Radcliffe-style career boost with the trilogy.
More than 200m copies of the Tintin books have been sold around the world to devoted fans. The adventures see Tintin, accompanied by his faithful dog Snowy, reporting on crime.
Spielberg is being assisted by Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson on the big budget production for which 17-year-old Sangster will be joined by Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in LOTR, as Tintin's friend, likeable drunk Captain Haddock.
Both actors have been in LA working on scenes for Spielberg and Jackson but work will begin in earnest in September. The first film is scheduled for release in 2010.
Sangster told Guardian that he had never read the Tintin books but added, "I've always loved the cartoons. I never saw the books because I was never that big on reading. When I was really young I watched some episodes and loved it.
"You can really escape into this fantasy world ... I love cars and aeroplanes and stuff, any car or any aeroplane or any gun that was ever used in Tintin would always be real, an exact copy of it so if it was a car it would be a Citroen and if it was a gun it would be a Luger. Tintin is like a super boy scout. He knows how to fly these things. He knows how to drive these things."
The young actor, who appeared in 2006's The Last Legion, wonders how they will deal with the kind of violence featured in the original stories.
"For such a small kid he's very good at beating people up and, being a cartoon, nowadays you know, there's all that 'we can't be violent'", he said.
"Tintin would hit people over the head with bottles and shoot people. He probably wouldn't kill them but he'd shoot them in the shoulder. He was cool."