New Zealand 'just right' for Narnia says British actor

William Moseley is Peter in The Chronicles of Narnia.

Young British actor William Moseley says New Zealand was the perfect setting for the filming of C S Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia.

New Zealand director Andrew Adamson shot The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, at locations throughout the country with a main production base in Auckland.

Moseley, 17, from Gloucestershire, plays the eldest brother Peter and is one of four lead children in the movie.

"It was a life-changing experience," Moseley told an internet site which tracks movies in production, www.comingsoon.net.

"New Zealand is an amazing setting for such an amazing film.

"A big city like Los Angeles or London or New York just wouldn't have been right for such a film like that.

"It's a free story about free things, and it needs to be in a free place, and I'm so glad we shot it in New Zealand. I think it was just right".

"I rode on this perfectly trained white Spanish Andalusian horse, bareback with a full suit of armour, sword and a shield across a battlefield, galloping towards snow-capped New Zealand mountains.

"That was the greatest experience of my life".

The film is due to premiere on December 9, about the same time as New Zealand director Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong.

- NZPA