Water hero!

NG Kids catches up with 13-year-old The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep star, Alex Etel, to talk about sea monsters, scuba diving and talking to tennis balls!

NG Kids: Hi Alex! We love the movie, it's brilliant! What was your favourite thing about filming The Water Horse?
Alex Etel: I loved the whole thing, but my favourite bits were all the underwater scenes and learning how to scuba dive! 

NGK: That must have been amazing! Could you swim before you started working on the film?
AK: I could, yes, but I wasn't a very strong swimmer. There were about five scuba divers around me the whole time, along with all the stunt crew, so I was always safe. But when I did the drowning scene, I had to stay under the water for as long as I could and then signal them to rush in with the oxygen tanks!

NGK: What was it like doing all the special effects?
AK: There were loads of them! They had this massive blue screen and a huge tank, about three-quarters of the size of a football pitch, where we did all the drowning scenes and stuff. But when I saw the blue screen for the first time, I thought "what are we doing here?" because I'd never seen one before. 

NGK: What exactly is a blue screen?
AK: It was just this blank blue screen with lots of orange dots over it. Then the director told me that I was going to have to act in front of it and then they would put the Water Horse and all the backgrounds onto it afterwards using computers!

NGK: How did you pretend you were talking to The Water Horse, then?
AK: They made a few puppets for the baby water horse, so I'd talk to them, but when the baby horse had grown up and it was bigger, they just gave me a tennis ball on a stick. It was really weird talking to a tennis ball!

NGK: So do you believe that this magical Water Horse really exists?
AK: I think it would be kind of cool to have something like that down there, but I'm not really sure. A lot of people claim to have seen it, though, so it would be really cool if it really did exist.

NGK: Has anyone taken pictures of it?
AK: There are some pictures and videos out there of it, one was taken quite recently. I think they recorded it on their phone, something going under the water, making a great big wave. If it had been me, my battery would have died!

NGK: What mythical creature would you most like to meet? The Loch Ness monster?
AK: Hmm… I think I'd like to see a huge bird that you could ride, that would be cool!

NGK: You spent ages in New Zealand for the film, didn't you? How did you manage to take time off school?!
AK: We spent about five months in New Zealand but when I was out there I had a tutor called Tony, so I had to do all the school work as well as the acting. I was really busy!

NGK: How old were you when you first started acting?
AK: I did my first film, Millions, when I was about eight.

NGK: What's it like walking into a shop and seeing your face on the cover of a DVD or a poster?
AK: It's really weird, it's kind of embarrassing at first because then you see people pointing at you and you get all jittery, but you get used to it and it gets better and better!

The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep is now out on DVD