Meet Oakes Fegley and Oona Laurence from PETE’S DRAGON #PetesDragonEvent

After the green carpet world premiere of PETE’S DRAGON at the El Capitan Theater earlier this week, Oakes Fegley delighted fans by climbing up, tuxedo and all, onto a photo prop of Elliot. The crowd cheered and “ooh” and “aww’d” over this charming young actor and his precocious nature on and off screen.  Oona Laurence evoked an equal amount of love from fans with her delightful personality and presence in the film and on the red carpet.

[SPOILER ALERT-  This interview does reference scenes in the film.  If you have not seen PETE’S DRAGON, you may wish to see the film prior to reading the interview.]

In Disney’s re-imagined PETE’S DRAGON, Oakes Fegley stars as Pete, a 10-year-old orphan who lives in the woods with a giant, friendly dragon.  Oona Laurence portrays Natalie, an 11-year-old girl who befriends Pete after he is found in the woods.  The two bond instantly and discover they must join forces to save Pete and his dragon friend, Elliot.   (You can find our full review of PETE’S DRAGON here.)

Our Disney Entertainment Mom Bloggers group had the chance to meet with Oakes Fegley and Oona Laurence the day after the world premiere, and were treated to a lovely experience chatting with these sweet, talented and wonderful children who help bring the magic to life in Disney’s re-imagined PETE’S DRAGON.

Both Oakes and Oona came to be in their roles in a similar way.  Each was called to several auditions and then ended up doing a chemistry read with the other.  The ease in how the interacted in our interview, finishing each other’s thoughts and agreeing on nearly every point, echoes what producers must have reacted positively to when selecting them for the roles of best friends Pete and Natalie in the film. Oakes was at school when the happy news of landing the role came through and Laurence was excited not only to get the part in the film, but to film in New Zealand.

“[New Zealand] is just such a beautiful and luscious place,” Oona Laurence said.  “There’s so much to do there, too. So it was great. Like, when we had, like, free time we would go do all the touristy stuff and also the people are so nice.  At the end of it, my mom was, like, ‘we have to move there!'”

Every young actor or actresses faces challenges of developing their acting chops, but Oakes and Oona had the added challenges of performing stunts in an action film setting and working with a truly invisible dragon as Elliot is a CGI character.

“It was pretty tough at first, because a lot of the time the dragon was a pole with a tennis ball on the end,” Oona Laurence said. “So it was kind of difficult to imagine that it was a dragon.”

“Like [Oona] said, it was a tennis ball on a stick or a piece of tape on the wall as an eye line,” Oakes Fegley added. “So you had to imagine that’s a dragon. It gets easier and easier as you get used to it, but at the beginning it was kind of challenging, and it was definitely hard.”

One of the most challenging scenes for Oakes was a scene where he had to leave Elliot.

“I was crying about a green screen leaving me,” Oakes Fegley said. “I had to imagine the tennis ball was going bye-bye.  It was kind of hard and after I had filmed the set a couple of times, I was just laughing.  I couldn’t stop laughing.”

There were challenges for both the young actors working with the green screen element with action scenes, as well.  It took about about 10 times for Oakes to perfect one of the breath-taking scenes in the film where he jumps off a cliff.  Oona faced a similar challenge with another dramatic scene in the film.

“The toughest was when my dad basically fell off the bridge,” Oona Laurence said. “I was never gonna see him again and I think that was pretty tough to imagine that when really I wasn’t actually looking off a cliff, I was looking at a green screen on the ground.  I really had to imagine that and harness emotions from other things.”

When the two were able to finally see their work merged with the computer-generated imagery of Elliot, it was a wonderful moment for them.

“They would give us rough drafts of the dragon, but we have never seen it in full,” Oona Laurence said. “When we both saw it, we were both, like ‘oh my God, this is amazing! How did they put this together? It looks so real!'”

Both agree all of their favorite scenes involve Elliot. Oona’s top favorite scene is one where Pete and Elliot say “good-bye.”  She said the scene made her cry.  Oakes has a top favorite scene that’s more on the lighter, humorous side where Elliot slides into a cow.

One thing both Oaks and Oona hope the audience takes away from the film after viewing it is to understand the importance of family.

“Know that family is very, very important,” Oaks Fegley said. “And that you can’t give up on family because they are there for you whenever.”