He is a former primary school teacher whose Artemis Fowl fantasy novels have sold more than 25 million copies in 44 languages. Now Ireland’s former children’s laureate, Eoin Colfer, will delight fans worldwide by appearing as an extra in Artemis Fowl, Disney’s forthcoming feature film directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh and starring Dame Judi Dench.
Describing his one scene, filmed in the north of Ireland, Colfer said: “I walked across a field with a lot of other people. It wasn’t too taxing – although I did manage to get it wrong a few times. The only direction they gave was: ‘Walk across the field and don’t look at the camera.’ I must have looked at the camera about 20 times. I have a new respect for actors.”
Artemis Fowl is a series of eight children’s fantasy novels about a teenage criminal mastermind, published between 2001 and 2012 and described by its author as “Die Hard with fairies”. Next month, Colfer publishes his first adult fantasy novel, Highfire, the story of a dragon called Vern who has been hiding from the world in a Louisiana swamp, watching cable TV and drinking too much vodka. Its readers will no doubt include Artemis fans who are now adults, reading Artemis stories to their own children.
Disney’s film, based on the first novel, is due for release in May. The studio describes it as a “spellbinding adventure that follows the journey of 12-year-old genius Artemis Fowl, a descendant of a long line of criminal masterminds, as he seeks to find his father who has mysteriously disappeared” and who “ultimately finds himself in a perilous war of wits with all-powerful fairies”.
Branagh, who directed Disney’s 2015 Cinderella, cast Dench as Commander Root, “a grumpy police chief with a heart of gold”, Colfer said, describing the “surreal thrill” of watching “one of the greatest actors” appear as a principal character in his story.
Despite Artemis’s global success, taking it from the page to the screen has been a long journey that began almost 20 years ago, he said: “There have been previous attempts at scripts, but it never seemed to find the right team. Also, the effects are good enough to realise it on the screen now.” Previous attempts to combine fairy folk and humans didn’t look real, he said. “They couldn’t make a convincing digital little person. Now there’s no problem doing that.”
Asked how faithful the film is to his original vision, he said: “I’ve seen about a third of it and it does look pretty close.”
Highfire was in its manuscript form when MGM Television snapped up the film rights. Head of TV production Steve Stark jumped at the chance to work with somebody he describes as a master storytellerwho has “reinvented the modern fairytale ”. Colfer will not be directly involved in the production, stating: “I much prefer just writing books in my office.”
Highfire started off as a kid’s book, he said. “It was a traditional grumpy old man meets young child who melts his heart – except that the grumpy old man was a dragon.” But he soon realised that the book wasn’t appropriate for children: “It was too violent. It just went a different way than I’d intended.”
He is now working on new book, but never reveals details of projects too early. Nor does he ever want to hear suggestions for plotlines.
“Sometimes, when people start to tell me stuff, I just ask them very nicely not to because I need to just keep the ideas mine,” he said. “You don’t want someone in 10 years saying ‘That was my idea’. I don’t read fan fiction online, even though I think it’s a fantastic thing. The world has got so litigious you have to be careful.”
Highfire will be published by Jo Fletcher Books, an imprint of Quercus, on 28 January
