by Becca Whitehead
William Moseley (The Chronicles of Narnia) became a house painter during the pandemic. Sort of.
“I fixed up my parents’ house. I just got a paint brush out and started painting. Their house ended up looking really good,” he laughs.
Moseley is chatting with Filmink from the Cotswolds, England, near the place he grew up. But apart from the renovations, he’s had anything but a leisurely time during the pandemic.
“Actually, during COVID I went out to New Mexico and made this really beautiful art film, Land of Dreams, with the Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat. I shot that with Matt Dillon and Isabella Rossellini, so that was great.”
Land of Dreams, with Neshat’s influence, is a visually spectacular film, and that was what attracted Moseley to the project.
“It looks a bit like Paris, Texas. It’s very beautiful. I always wanted to make a film like that – I love those Americana sort of stories. That kind of classic American movie – like Easy Rider, films like that. I always loved them growing up, so I was lucky that I got to do that,” he says.
After having similar ‘luck’ starring in box office darlings like the Narnia series, Moseley has had the freedom to pick and choose more of the films he has wanted to make.
“I was shot out of a cannon so to speak, and the films were obviously a colossal success. I think you know you’ve ‘made it’ when you can choose the projects you want to do,” he says.
Moseley is determined to choose movies that he can be proud of.
“There’s a lot nowadays about mental health, and people say it doesn’t have to be hard, in order for it to be good,” he says. “Obviously, there are directors I’d love to work with. I love Ridley Scott’s films. I love David Fincher’s, and Aaron Sorkin’s writing. I think the goal eventually will be to make one of those big, romantic war movies.”
Moseley likes epic stories. “When you go to the cinema and you have that feeling, and watching something extraordinary… That feeling that you get is something that I want to create,” he says.
Moseley’s latest role is in On the Line, in which he stars alongside Mel Gibson. The thriller follows an unlikeable shock jock who takes a call from a killer while on air. Directed by Romuald Boulanger, the film was shot in Paris over 16 days, and all of Moseley’s scenes were with Gibson. Moseley knew that he had more than enough experience in the world of Australian filmmaking to bond with Gibson.
“I was already fully aware of Australian filmmakers. We did Dawn Treader (from the Narnia series) in Australia. And I’ve watched a lot of Australian movies. Heath Ledger did this amazing film, Candy, I loved that. Australian films are amazing. I’d seen Chopper, I remember seeing Romeo + Juliet and just being stunned by it. And actually, we had the Australian DP from Romeo + Juliet, Don McAlpine, shoot the first Narnia.”
Moseley also starred alongside Thomas Cocquerel in In Like Flynn, about Errol Flynn and his escapades before gaining Hollywood fame.
“In Like Flynn was a really great experience for me because I got to live for six weeks on the Gold Coast, and I got to experience the life. I did have fun.”
Moseley didn’t hesitate when offered the role in On the Line, excited to play a bit of an action thriller role.
“My agent said, ‘We’ve got this movie, it’s like an action movie to you and Mel Gibson, and it’s just you guys. It’s a lot of twists.’ I mean, I was 100 percent in. I went out and met Mel and we shot it in sixteen days,” he says.
“It was very important to me, because I have a lot of respect for Mel as a director. I grew up watching him, we used to skive off school and watch Lethal Weapon on VHS. Obviously Mad Max as well. But when he made Apocalypto, I remember going to the cinema and just being like – like I said before – that feeling you get. It was so vivid,” he says.
“And you know,” he laughs, “when I did Narnia, and I got to play Peter riding a horse into battle, that felt a bit like Braveheart.”
Moseley also wants to pay respect to Boulanger, director of On the Line.
“He really did such an incredible job. English isn’t his first language. It’s an extraordinary feat, to get Mel Gibson to Paris – you don’t speak the language properly, and you haven’t directed that many movies, you get the film financed and bring actors from all over the world, and write a good script, and direct it in seventeen days. To have it edited, like three months later, and it looks amazing. And it works well. I’m very grateful to him,” he says.
Moseley stars in several films being released this year, including Land of Dreams, Medieval (an English-language Czech historical drama film directed by Petr Jákl), and Raven’s Hollow, about the gothic horror writer Edgar Allen Poe before he was a famous writer, in which he plays a sort of 1830s Sherlock Holmes character.
“I play Poe, but the angle is that he was basically a soldier before he was, you know, an alcoholic. He went to West Point, a big military academy in upstate New York. We go into a village where there’s been a murder, and my cadets and I are trying to find out who committed the murder. And there’s a supernatural element – it’s fun.”
Moseley will also star in a new movie about Davy Crockett.
“I’m going to be playing another real-life person! We’re gonna do a survival Western. I’m really looking forward to shooting in Tennessee in the end of October.”
Does he have a penchant for playing characters before they were famous?
“I think when you see the prequel to them becoming very successful, it’s always interesting. What the filmmaker chooses to focus on – how that balance works.”
The story of William Moseley before he was famous would be of growing up in the English countryside, where he has now ended up.
“I was a country boy. The last generation before phones and the internet. I sound crazy, but the last time before the world kind of became smaller. It wasn’t perfect, but it was quite beautiful.”
On the Line is in cinemas November 17, 2022