London
(ANI):
BAFTA-winning
English
actor
Jamie
Bell
has
been
chosen
to
provide
the
voice
and
movement
for
the
cartoon
character
Tintin
in
Steven
Spielberg's
animation
film.
The
signing
of
Bell
to
do
voice-overs
for
the
Belgian
journalist
in
the
film
The
Adventures
of
Tintin:
Secret
of
the
Unicorn
is
the
last
key
casting
decision
in
the
project,
which
has
taken
almost
30
years
to
come
to
fruition.
The
appointment
of
Bell,
who
appeared
as
the
title
character
in
Billy
Elliot
at
the
age
of
14,
to
play
Tintin
coincides
with
the
announcement
that
James
Bond
star
Daniel
Craig
will
play
Red
Rackham,
one
of
the
villains
of
the
story.
Craig
recently
starred
opposite
Bell
in
Defiance,
an
action
drama
set
during
the
Second
World
War.
Other
British
actors
associated
with
the
project
are
Simon
Pegg
and
Nick
Frost,
who
will
portray
Thompson
and
Thomson,
the
pair
of
bowler-hatted
detectives
with
no
instinct
for
solving
crime.
Andy
Serkis,
the
British
actor
who
appeared
as
Gollum
in
the
Rings
trilogy,
will
play
Captain
Haddock,
the
whisky-soaked
sea
dog
who
acts
as
Tintin's
travelling
companion.
Toby
Jones,
who
recently
portrayed
Karl
Rove
in
W,
and
Mackenzie
Crook,
who
appeared
in
the
television
series
The
Office
and
the
Pirates
of
the
Caribbean
films,
will
be
the
other
English
stars
to
join
them.
Mark
Rodwell,
of
Moulinsart,
which
controls
the
rights
to
Tintin,
said
that
the
film-makers
were
allowed
a
certain
degree
of
latitude
as
long
as
they
did
not
alter
the
fundamentals
of
the
story.
"I
don't
think
a
love
interest
would
be
possible.
But
when
you're
transforming
something
from
the
written
page
on
to
the
big
screen
you
have
to
have
some
new
characters.
What
Steven
and
Peter
(Jackson)
are
trying
to
do
is
be
as
true
to
Herge"s
original
story
as
possible
but
they
have
to
have
some
artistic
licence," Times
Online
quoted
him
as
saying.
Spielberg
bought
the
option
to
create
a
Tintin
film
from
Herge
in
1982,
a
year
before
the
author's
death.
It
lapsed
in
the
late
1980s
but
the
director
took
out
another
in
2003.
He
exercised
it
four
years
later
when
he
felt
that
animation
technology
had
become
sophisticated
enough
to
do
the
books
justice.