Newcomer Ed Speleers talsk to Steve Pratt about giving himself a year to make it as a Hollywood actor after dropping his A-levels to focus on the shooting of dragon movie Eragon.

ED Speleers has had the kind of opportunity many teenagers dream about but few achieve - being cast in the lead of a big budget Hollywood movie without any previous film experience. The 18-year-old from Chichester in the South of England was cast in the title role in Eragon, a fantasy tale about a boy and his dragon, after a worldwide casting search. He won the part after a half-hour audition, having only previously appeared in school productions.

Now here he is sharing a press junket platform with the likes of Jeremy Irons and Robert Carlyle, two of his co-stars in the screen version of the bestseller written by teenager Christopher Paolini.

"I'd read the book and enjoyed it, but had no idea they were making a movie. Then my drama teacher at school heard they were looking for an actor to play Eragon in a big film version and put me forward for the audition," explains Speleers. "I thought I'd go for it on a whim. I always wanted to be an actor, but never dreamed that it would happen this way, in a big Hollywood film."

Several auditions later he was a boarding school when he received a call from his dad telling him he'd got the part. He put down the phone, walked quietly into the school common room - and then let rip. "I jumped up and down, screaming and shouting. Suddenly I realised just what had happened," he recalls.

"Then for the next few days at school with my friends, there was just euphoria. My friends seemed to enjoy it all as well, they were happy for me. They made fun of me a bit because I'd be going to Hollywood, but we just had fun. There was such a rush of excitement. I'd never been to Los Angeles before, so that in itself is amazing. It's great."

As a newcomer, he was learning the language of film all the time with the help of an acting coach. Just turning up on set and seeing hundreds of people running around with equipment was a new experience. "I developed as we went along, learning how to react to the camera and learning tricks and skills," says Speleers. "I was nervous, but I think that's a positive thing. You need nerves and pressure when you're acting, so that you rise to the challenge. But I didn't let the nerves overwhelm me."

As someone going from teenager to young man, he could empathise with Eragon as he learns to grow up, even if his lessons involve a pet dragon, sorcerers and wizards. "At the start, he has an innocence, he's a naive young guy and, like every teenager, he's not quite a man and not quite a boy either," he says.

"The reason the story and books are so successful is that Christopher Paolini was probably going through all those emotions and feelings when he wrote the book, because he was in his teens at the time.

"He might not have had those exact pressures - he wasn't trying to save his country - but essentially it was the same thing. He is on a big, wonderful adventure, meeting a lot of crazy people. And the story is all about how he enters manhood and comes of age."

He had three weeks of physical training before filming, spending an hour in the gym every morning followed by horseriding, archery and sword-fighting. "It was tough but really enjoyable, being on a horse, galloping through rivers in the middle of Vancouver. It's true I was exhausted at the end of the day and the following day my legs would hurt from riding all day, but I loved it," he says.

Sometimes he'd have to pinch himself to make sure it wasn't just a dream. Like the day he found himself with co-star Sienna Guillory on the top of a mountain in Slovakia, 2,000 ft up and nothing else around. "I was looking over the mountains and woods and all I could see was a helicopter circling above, taking shots of us. I didn't say anything to Sienna, I just looked at her and said to myself, 'this is unreal, unbelievable, I'm really making a movie'," he recalls.

Jeremy Irons became his mentor both on and off screen. "He was like a father figure to me, like a best friend, everything," says the young actor. "He taught me a little bit about the industry and a little bit about being a person. He taught me how to hold myself on the set and that it was okay to do things in my own time, without letting people push me. He would always involve me in any discussions about the scene, even though this is my first film."

He had less contact with the dragon added by the special effects people afterwards the live action filming. Most of the time Speleers was acting opposite an orange tennis ball on the top of a 12ft pole, standing in for the dragon. "So it was all in my imagination. I had to try and create my own image of the dragon in my head," he says.

"When it came to the riding scenes, we went to Pinewood Studios and spent about seven weeks in front of a blue screen. I was strapped to a motorised mechanism about 15ft in the air, representing the dragon. Every day I was being tossed around on this thing which would move the way the dragon moved, doing all kinds of different things."

He's given up his studies for acting and abandoned plans, temporarily, at least - to go to university and study to be a lawyer as his dad wanted. "As much as I would love to finish my A-levels, I couldn't because I had to keep going back to work," he says.

"I've taken the approach that I will see what happens at the end of the year. If I get the chance to continue working as an actor, then I'll be delighted. And if not, I'll have plenty of time to go back and do some more academic work if I decide that's what I want to do."

* Eragon (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow.