The sky is the limit for 10-year-old Ipswich actress Arabella Morton, writes Denise Carter

Life just couldn’t get better for a 10-year‑old actress than a part in a blockbuster movie and a trip to London to walk the red carpet.

Young Arabella Morton is the Australian actress making her film debut in The Chronicles of Narnia – Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third instalment in the movies of CS Lewis’s books that began with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2003.

She plays the new character Gael and is already ramping up a storm on Facebook with now more than 700 followers before she has even lit up the silver screen.   

Arabella began acting at the age of four, and had a couple of advertisements under her belt before she auditioned for Narnia.    

“I had no idea it was for Narnia,” Arabella says from her Ipswich home. “I was star struck when I found out.”

The sense of awe of stars on set was not limited to Arabella but has also extended to her family.     

“My brother Charlie was very supportive,” Arabella says.   

“On the first day of filming, he was star struck by Ben Barnes, who plays King Caspian. He almost fainted.”    

Then there’s Arabella’s mum who was the most excited person of all when she found out she would be travelling to London to meet the Queen.   

“Mum has wanted to meet the Queen all her life,” Arabella says.   

“She ran around the room and dad said he never saw mum that excited before.

“Everyone was laughing because she nearly blew the roof.”  

November 30 was the Royal gala premiere in London, which was preceded by a cocktail party.   

“It’s the first 3D movie the Queen will have ever watched,” Arabella says.

Arabella’s mum bought her two dresses for the high-profile events.

“For the premiere, an ice blue dress with vines and for the cocktail party, a white dress with black ribbon stripes,” Arabella says.     

Meantime, her dad and her brother Charlie watched the first screening in Australia on the Gold Coast on December 1. 

Mum is very proud of her actress daughter and no one is more impressed by Arabella’s performances in front of the camera.     

“I was amazed the second she set foot on set,” mum Samantha Morton says.

“I watched on the monitor and she had an English accent and looked different and acted different.    

“It was great to be a party to that.”

Arabella has plenty of ambition and is looking to her acting idols for her future career development.     

“I love Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCaprio because they can snap in and out of character,” she says.

And can you?, I ask Arabella before she flies skywards and towards the big-time, to which she replies: “Yes, I can”.

>> The Chronicles of Narnia – Voyage of the Dawn Treader (3D) opens at Birch Carroll & Coyle Cairns Cinemas today.

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