'Tintin IS still relevant - he’s a child with a gun'

We sat down with Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to talk all things ‘Tintin’, just in time for the release of the film this week.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, the adaptation of the Belgian series of books by Hergé is the first in a planned trilogy of family adventures.

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“I think ‘Tintin’ is the Godfather of a lot of characters that are young people let loose in an adult world,” said Pegg, who plays Thompson alongside Frost’s Thomson, “Not least ‘Potter’ most recently, the ‘Narnia’ children and ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

“There’s this great history of the fantasy of being a child in a grown up’s world and I think Tintin embodies a lot of that fantasy.”

Jamie Bell, who plays the title role, was excited to work with his hero Spielberg. “Usually when you meet people that you adore and idolise there’s always that that chance that you’re going to be disappointed when you finally meet them. But he’s everything that he’s cracked up to be, he really is. He is magical.”

The story follows the boy reporter Tintin and his dog Snowy as they unravel the mystery surrounding an age-old ship, the Unicorn.

When asked what made the series relevant to modern audiences, Frost quipped “Well, he’s a boy with a gun.” To which Pegg added, “You see them all the time now, particularly in North London.”

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More seriously, Frost said, “I think everyone at one point would have liked to have been a young, exciting boy reporter with a pistol. I know I certainly did.”

The film was produced by Peter Jackson who was confirmed recently as the director of the second Tintin film. He will direct it once he is done making ‘Lord of the Rings’ prequel, ‘The Hobbit’, set for release late next year.

Bell said: “The good thing about this film is that everyone from Steven Spielberg to Peter Jackson, is coming at this from the same place - which is we want to best represent Hergé’s creation and I think we managed to do that.”

‘The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn’ also stars Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock and Daniel Craig as the villainous Sakharine.

“It’s just a cracking great yarn,” said Pegg, “Hergé wrote some brilliant stories and quite simple stories which don’t necessarily lend themselves to cinematic adaptations by themselves but if you get three of them together and adapt it as Hergé kind of wanted Steven Spielberg to do just before he died then you’ve got a film in the greatest tradition of Steven’s best action adventures.”

 ‘The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn’ is in cinemas now.