{"id":654939,"date":"2026-06-24T00:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T00:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654939\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T00:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T00:38:12","slug":"rogue-trooper-star-tackles-mugger-as-movie-premieres-at-annecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654939\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Rogue Trooper\u2019 Star Tackles Mugger As Movie Premieres At Annecy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFact proved as action packed as fiction for Rogue Trooper<\/a> star Aneurin Barnard<\/a> as he attended the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France for the film\u2019s premiere this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tBarnard, who plays the titular Rogue Trooper in the sci-fi movie blending motion capture with animation and unreal technology, revealed he had just been involved in apprehending a street thief as he arrived for an Annecy Making Of Session on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tComing on stage to discuss his casting and what it was like to work on the show, Barnard replied; \u201cIt feels really weird for me to be telling this story. I just helped an old lady who\u2019s been robbed and had to tackle a robber on the way here like an hour ago, so yeah,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

\n\tDirector Duncan Jones<\/a> chimed in: \u201cIf the front row can confirm the blood on the knuckles. Sorry, it\u2019s just been a really weird day. It\u2019s been a very strange 24 hours, but we love Annecy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tQuizzed about the revelation after the session, Barnard told an audience member mildly: \u201cI just had to hold them down until the police arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThey were speaking less than 24 hours after a high-energy premiere on Monday evening for the militaristic sci-fi film based on the UK\u2019s cult 2000 AD comic strip, which also spawned Judge Joseph Dredd.<\/p>\n

\n\tGaining his composure, Barnard recounted his arrival on the project and brief time on set, where just his face was captured as he acted out his part, with his performance then melded with the animation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt kind of came out of the blue and it was a really lovely surprise,\u201d he said of being cast in the role. \u00a0\u201cI knew Rogue Trooper as a video game first. Then I learned about the comics, and I knew Duncan because I\u2019ve always loved his work and I think he\u2019s a fantastic director.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI started to meet the team, and everyone was really lovely. It was a bit of a pinch yourself moment because there wasn\u2019t a bad person. And normally if that happens, you\u2019re the bad person,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut everyone was so humble and so invested in creating a fun project where people can enjoy and engage and not take themselves too seriously, but very seriously, you know what I mean? And for me, it was just a wonderful project. I\u2019m a bit annoyed that I only did two weeks and these guys like did years and that I wasn\u2019t a part of that journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso joining Jones and Barnard on the stage were producer Stuart\u00a0Fenegan at Liberty Films Entertainment; co-producer Ben Smith, head of Film & TV at Rebellion, which owns the rights to 2000 AD comics; visual effects supervisor Marty Waters, and Head of Animation Thomas Saville at Treehouse Digital Limited,\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJones, whose previous credits include Moon, Source Code and Warcraft: The Beginning recounted how he had been an avid fan of the 2000 AD comics since childhood and that he had contacted Rebellion owners Jason and Chris Kingsley in his early 20s expressing his desire to adapt them to the big screen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been 25 years getting to this point. I did go and see Jason and Chris. I had a mohawk at the time because I really wanted to sell the idea\u2026 I was fortunate to get a meeting with them. And I think as soon as they saw me, they knew that I was a bit of a numpty,\u201d he recounted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018yeah, I\u2019d love to make Rogue Trooper as a movie\u2019. And they said, well, \u2018Have you made any movies before?\u2019 I said,\u2019 No\u2019. They said, \u2018You should probably go make some movies first\u2019. Because I had the mohawk and I was so embarrassed, It took about 20 years before I went back to them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fact proved as action packed as fiction for Rogue Trooper star Aneurin Barnard as he attended the Annecy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[219541,90733,96,2839,191845,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-654939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-aneurin-barnard","tag-duncan-jones","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-rogue-trooper","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}