@impending-doom Really hoping one of those 3 adult male actors is gonna be our Aslan!

I really hope people don't get their hopes up about Ciaran Hinds as a possible Aslan. 

The evidence for Streep as Aslan is pretty overwhelming at this point. Like we honestly have more evidence for her than almost any other role attribution so far 

Much more likely that he's Professor Kirke... maybe even a Fledge .. but we shall see 

At the moment, I'm thinking the Professor.

@icarus I'd rather she was an ongoing narrator, perhaps an older Polly? If the much older Digory is going to be brought in (time jumping as in Little Women?), it would be reasonable to have Polly equally aged.

Posted by: @icarus

The evidence for Streep as Aslan is pretty overwhelming at this point. Like we honestly have more evidence for her than almost any other role attribution so far 

Really??? We have no evidence other than the  those two original news outlets that broke the story — one minor, one reasonably trusted, but neither of them officially connected to Netflix or Greta Gerwig, and neither of them giving any sources at all for where they got their information from.

At the moment, with the complete lack of any kind of follow-up to this story in more than a year since then, and with several other cast members reliably confirmed in the meantime, including in many cases the actual characters they're playing — Digory, Polly, Digory's mother, Jadis, plus a "Mr Potts" and a purported sister for Polly — I can't see how we can claim we have "more evidence for [Meryl Streep playing Aslan] than almost any other role attribution so far". I'd say we have significantly less evidence for her than for several other actors and their roles.

Of course, in the absence of any refutation of the "Meryl Streep playing Aslan" story, we also can't say it's unlikely. But I genuinely don't understand where the "90% likely she's playing Aslan" estimate comes from, except that nothing has come up connecting her with any other role.

I agree it's now almost 100% certain she is in the production somehow. My own estimation of probabilities of her role, though, is (approximately!)

• 50% likely she's playing Aslan (because she indeed hasn't been associated with any other role, and other aspects of this production are definitely "unconventional" enough that a gender-swapped or gender-ambiguous Aslan isn't out of the question)
• 50% likely she's playing another character and Aslan will be unarguably male (because that prominent maned lion on the poster on one of the sets has clearly got to mean something, and because I would hope that even a non-traditionalist like Gerwig would realise that a female or female-voiced Aslan would alienate and even outright offend a HUGE proportion of Narnia's fan base).

And that is the most sense I can make out of the arguments on both sides of the still-unanswered question.  

Looking at the list of actors, Digory (David McKenna) and Polly (Beatrice Campbell) are listed first - that makes sense as they are the two most prominent characters in the book. Jadis (Emma Mackey) makes sense to be listed third.

But I would expect either Aslan (Meryl Streep?) or Uncle Andrew (Daniel Craig) to be listed forth as the next most important characters. Instead we get Carey Mulligan and Ciaran Hinds first. Meryl Streep and Daniel Craig are also (arguably) bigger name actors than Carey and Ciaran (though all four actors have done some great work over their careers).

I suspect Mabel has a greatly expanded role to be listed so early amongst the actors.

But what about Ciaran? People have suggested he could be Aslan (which I would be all for). Strawberry has a significant role in the later part of the book, so that could make sense too.

Someone suggested he could be the narrator / C S Lewis. From what remains of the war time recordings of Lewis from what would later become ‘Mere Christianity’, I don’t think Ciaran sounds much like Lewis, but I guess this is possible.

Assuming Mabel has an expanded role, and given that England’s relationship with India had changed somewhat from the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s, I can’t help but wonder if Digory’s dad will still be away during the events of the book. I.e, could Ciaran be playing Digory’s father? I hesitate to suggest this as there has already been a lot of speculation and I’m tired of mourning how different the movie looks like it might be compared to the book. But it did occur to me as a real possibility (if there are significant flashbacks, maybe it would not really be that different to the book anyway.)

Beyond that, an older Digory would also be cool.

The final actors listed (King Frank, Queen Helen and Aunt Letty) all make sense as less important characters being listed later.

@courtenay I can explain my logic somewhat when it comes to role attribution:...

• For Daniel Craig, I believe the only source we have linking him to the role of Uncle Andrew was a piece by Variety early on in production. But since Variety are an authoritative industry source, we can take that as confirmed.
• Similarly, for Carey Mulligan, we only have the original Hollywood Reporter (THR) article which linked her to the role of Mabel, I dont believe she has ever mentioned the role name herself. However, again, since THR are an authoritative industry source, we can take that as more-or-less confirmed as well.
• For the kids, I am not sure we've ever seen any authoritative source explicitly use the names "Digory" and "Polly" other than the Spotlight Profile for Ava Jager who indicated she was playing "Polly Sister #3". But since they are doing Magician's Nephew, simple logic can fill in the blanks there.
• For Denise Gough, Susan Wokoma, and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, we have some fairly complex detective work from the NarniaWeb news team that has been able to piece together the fact that they are most likely playing Letty, Helen and Frank respectively, but so far nothing necessarily official.

And yet for Meryl Streep we actually had two independent sources right off the bat (Deadline and Nexus) which is actually a pretty rare thing to get. Not only is Deadline an authoritative industry source, they were able to independently verify Nexus' reporting with their own sources after we reached out to them. Similarly we spoke directly with Nexus, who vehemently stood by their sources and their reporting. We also reached out to Netflix who chose not to deny either report.

And obviously, whilst i can't disclose all of NarniaWeb's sources and contacts, we did run an investigation of our own, which included contact with several people connected with the production, which we published in this story here:

https://www.narniaweb.com/2025/08/narniaweb-investigates-will-aslan-be-a-lioness/

Since then, I would say that almost all of the trade papers have reported Streep as Aslan at some point, and every indicator, big or small, that the News Team has been able to glean from inside the production has indicated that she will play Aslan.... and equally so far we've not really seen any evidence to suggest anything to the contrary, or anyone else connected with the role.

I hang onto the hope that someone other than Streep will be voicing Aslan as much as anyone, but as a news reporter for the site i do feel i need to be as objective as i can about the facts and data that we have before us, and so far its only really pointing in one direction.

Posted by: @davidd

But I would expect either Aslan (Meryl Streep?) or Uncle Andrew (Daniel Craig) to be listed forth as the next most important characters. Instead we get Carey Mulligan and Ciaran Hinds first. Meryl Streep and Daniel Craig are also (arguably) bigger name actors than Carey and Ciaran (though all four actors have done some great work over their careers).

 

I think I can offer a bit of clarity on what i think is going on with the casting order as well. 

First you have the 3 "above the line" cast members who are the main stars - Digory, Polly and Jadis. These are likely the 3 names that will likely appear on the introductory titles before the main logo is displayed in the film.

Then you have the next three members of the principal cast arranged in alphabetical order by first name - Carey, Ciaran, Daniel.

Finally then you have the "with / and" credits, which are usually used to give prominence to a big star (e.g. Meryl Streep) who is not otherwise top-billing, followed by the more minor cast members - Kobna, Gough and Wokoma... admittedly not in alphabetical or any other particular order for those last 3 as far as i can tell.

Could be wrong about that, but that would be my best guess based on what I know about the traditions of film credit ordering.

I don't mind Streep voicing Aslan as long as he remains a male lion.  I think it would be a cool test of Streep's acting abilities to completely alter her voice.

I do think a female Aslan COULD work, but from a business perspective it's just not worth all of the controversy it would bring from the core Narnia fandom.  

I listened to an interview with Ciaran (admittedly on how to pronounce his name) and he's definitely got the voice for Aslan - but would definitely work for Digory post-time jump.

Posted by: @icarus

Much more likely that he's Professor Kirke...

If this hypothesis is correct, the implications for when LWW may take place are very interesting indeed.... (like, modern times?)

I've got a secret bubble of hope: That Hinds will be Aslan's speaking voice, while Streep will do the singing 🎵. Any takers for my theory (which was actually suggested by Glumpuddle in a podcast recently) 🙂

@glenwit I don’t think he would have such high a billing, if he was appearing only after time jump though. I also think he is too old to be playing Digory’s father too. He had higher placement on the list than both Daniel Craig and Meryl !?!

@oathkeeper 

I had not considered that. That might be a really good sign actually... I'm just hesitant to get my hopes up. 

@jillpole2 

I would love it if Ciaran Hinds voices Aslan while Meryl Streep sings for him, though it would seem strange that Emma Mackey would be excited about being on set with Meryl Streep and Daniel Craig if Meryl was only performing Aslan’s singing voice (mind you, it seems strange that they brought a voice actor on set at all - they must really want to get the interaction between Aslan and the other actors right if this is what they are doing).

Actually, thinking about this further, Emma Mackey was excited about working with Meryl Streep, but the only real interaction between the two in the book is that the Jadis throws an iron bar from the lamppost at Aslan’s head while Aslan sings. How much “working together” would this really involve? I wonder what it could all mean?