You get more out of the characters... you can feel their souls

The cast of live-action remake How To Train Your Dragon - including Gerard Butler and Nick Frost - on taking the popular children's story to the next level. By ELLA WALKER

- ELLA WALKER

WHO wouldn’t want to spiral through the air on the back of a dragon?

Well, OK, most of the inhabitants of the Island of Berk, where dragons and vikings are sworn enemies, each intent on wiping the other species out. But the cast of the new live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon do make it look rather spectacular, even if not all their stunts are as acrobatic as you might imagine.

"Mason learnt to fall over, a lot," says Nico Parker, 20, of her co-star Mason Thames, who plays our hero Hiccup, with a laugh.

"A lot," agrees Texas-born Mason, 17.

"Learning how to take a fall, and then once I'd learned how to fall properly, to unlearn it all and make it sloppy, was cool," he adds, shooting back at Nico, who plays viking Astrid, a student of dragon fighting and Hiccup's love interest: "She got to do the cool stuff, she killed it."

"Cartwheels! So many flips, I dropped from 60ft," says Nico, the daughter of Crash and Westworld actress Thandie Newton. "I fell over all the time - not on purpose - it was really fun."

Based on Cressida Cowell's gripping children's books, the How To Train Your Dragon series charts the adventures of Toothless, a Night Fury dragon, and Hiccup - to give him his full title, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, son of Stoick the Vast - who is on a mission to achieve his dream of becoming a true viking and following in his chieftain father's footsteps.

"He's always been different and because of that, he's been cast out by his village, his tribe and his father, and of all people, he really just wants to make his dad proud and for Astrid not to look at him like a weird creature," says Mason, best known for appearing opposite Ethan Hawke in horror movie The Black Phone.