An orphan's great responsibility

MANILA, Philippines - Maria Merryweather (Dakota Blue Richards) has recently been orphaned and, despite great expectations, her sole inheritance is an illustrated book titled The Secret Chronicles of Moonacre Valley. She is sent to live with her cold, reserved uncle (Ioan Gruffudd) along with her companion Miss Heliotrope (Juliet Stevenson).

Maria discovers that the book provides a key to a past world and a secret that must be revealed before the rising of the 5,000th moon, when Moonacre will disappear into the ocean forever. A number of questions must be answered if she is to save them all. What is the curse on Moonacre Manor, her new home, which despite its beautiful exterior is dilapidated and cold, and who are the sinister, dark-clothed men who live in the forest and seem intent on capturing Maria?

Below are excerpts of Richards’ interview about her role:

Can you tell us a little about The Secret Of Moonacre and how your character fits into the story?

I play Maria Merryweather who’s an orphan. She goes to live with her governess Miss Heliotrope in the country with her uncle. She finds out about all this magical stuff that’s going on and she has to save the valley from destruction.

She has a very inquisitive character. Is that a trait you share with her?

Yeah, I think it is. It’s not always a good one because a lot of the time I’ll ask too many questions and people are like, ‘Why do you even want to know?’ I like it, I think if you didn’t ask questions then the world would be boring and you would never learn anything.

There’s a lot of different animals in the movie. Did they cause mischief?

Most of the time they were quite well-behaved. The horses sometimes misbehaved a bit, but mostly it was fine. It’s funny because they say the two things that nobody should ever work with are children and animals. I am a child, so I don’t know if that counts, but working with animals I think is fine. It gives you something to laugh about at the end of the day if something goes wrong.