Skandar Keynes makes Edmund Pevensie’s vulnerability and growing confidence believable. We value his physical assurance in Prince Caspian, though the film gives him too much fighting and too little of the awkwardness that makes Edmund worth watching.
Fi1m perspective
Skandar Keynes has plenty to do with a sword in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), and he makes the physical work convincing. His Edmund Pevensie is more assured now, with less of the resentment that made the younger boy interesting. Keynes handles that change, but assurance gives him less to play when the writing is already short of attention for its characters. He is capable here; the film does not make enough use of him.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), directed by Andrew Adamson, established Edmund as his defining part. The boy’s resentment and vulnerability gave Keynes something more difficult to convey than the straightforward excitement of an adventure. That remains the useful starting point for looking at his work: a child whose feelings complicate the business of being a hero. Across three films, Keynes had to let him grow older without losing that vulnerability.
Adamson returned for Prince Caspian, where Keynes’s own stunt work includes sword fighting and horse riding. The physical confidence is welcome, and our reservations about the film should not obscure the effort. We grew impatient with its battles because there were too few people we cared enough about between them. Edmund suffers from this emphasis: the more settled character is given action when he needs something to make him interesting again.
Michael Apted took over for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010), Keynes’s third and final appearance as Edmund. Keynes announced in 2016 that he was no longer pursuing acting, leaving us without a substantial adult screen career to consider. There is consequently little evidence of what other parts, or a longer working relationship with either director, might have brought out of him. Start with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe if the performance, rather than the swordplay, is the attraction.
Biography
Skandar Keynes is an English political adviser and former actor. Born Alexander Amin Caspar Keynes on 5 September 1991 in Camden, London, he trained at the Anna Scher Theatre School.
He is known for portraying Edmund Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). He also appeared in Ferrari (2003). Keynes retired from acting in 2016.
He later worked as a parliamentary adviser to Conservative MP Crispin Blunt from 2015 to 2018 and has since continued as a political adviser. He is the son of author Randal Keynes and the great-great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin.
