It might be Thomas, actually.
Tintin fans the world over wondering who'll be playing Georges Remi's weirdly coiffed Belgian reporter in a trilogy of films to be directed by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, remember this name: Thomas Sangster.
The 17-year-old British actor—best known for playing opposite Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson in the 2003 comedy hit Love Actually and again with Thompson in 2005's Nanny McPhee—is reportedly the filmmakers' top pick to play the famed European comic strip character.
According to London's Daily Mail, Sangster has flown to Los Angeles to take part in a variety of preproduction test sequences for the films, which like Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf and Jackson's own Lord of the Rings epics, will rely heavily on the state-of-the-art performance-capture technology to translate Remi's unique vision to the big screen.
The Indiana Jones director is slated to helm the inaugural entry in the Tintin franchise and the Rings ringmaster the second while both will serve as producers. No word yet who'll take the reins on the third picture.
Spielberg's publicist, Marvin Levy, declined to comment on the teen's casting given the secrecy surrounding the would-be blockbuster, which will be released in digital 3-D.
One person we do know who's board Tintin is frequent Jackson collaborator, Andy Serkis, who played the scene-stealing Gollum in LOTR and the titular ape in King Kong. Serkis is set to portray Tintin's grumpy, hard-drinking mentor and best friend, Captain Haddock.
Meanwhile, when he's not studying for his university entrance exams, Sangster (who, for those keeping score at home, happens to be a cousin of Hugh Grant, per the Love Actually DVD commentary) is gearing up to star opposite Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish in director Jane Campion's Bright Star, a period romance depicting the passionate love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne.
Jackson and Spielberg have chosen three stories from Remi's The Adventures of Tintin, a series of 23 books written between 1929 and 1976 under his pen name, Hergé. While relatively obscure to most Americans, Tintin has sold more than 200 million copies worldwide and been translated into over 50 languages.
The strip follows a fearless, globe-trotting Belgian cub reporter who fights crime with his trusty Fox Terrier, Snowy, and a host of oddball pals, including Haddock, absent-minded Professor Cuthbert Calculus, opera diva Bianca Castaliore, and bowler-wearing, blundering twin cops Thomson and Thompson.
Shooting on the first Tintin movie gets underway in the fall.