It’s hard to believe How To Train Your Dragon’s live action movie has already been out for several weeks on the 2025 movie schedule and made more than several hundred million dollars at the box office globally. The movie has already nabbed a How To Train Your Dragon 2 live action sequel and many people have seen it, but I was curious to know what original author Cressida Cowell, who wrote the books with the same series name, had to say about the movie.
What Cressida Cowell Thinks Of The Live Action Movie
The good news is she was on hand for the opening of Epic Universe at Universal Studios recently. As the stars took a break from riding the new rides, I was able to ask her about her favorite How To Train Your Dragon moments. I wasn’t sure what she’d say, but she seemed tickled pink about the relationship between leads Mason Thames and Gerard Butler, whom she calls Gerry.
So many really emotional moments. They nailed it! I mean, Mason and Gerry and the whole cast, but that whole father-son relationship is stunning.
She revealed to me she'd actually cried when she'd seen the movie on the big screen, and got candid about the moments that stood out when she saw them play out. This squares with our How To Train Your Dragon review, which noted the emotional nature of the film. For her, though, it was "personal."
Well, this is maybe personal. When Gerry (Jerry) says, ‘You ARE NOT my son!’ --Oh my goodness. It’s also personal for me when Hiccup, I’m thinking about this right now and I’m going to tear up, the bit where Hiccup is waiting to go into the arena and he knows he’s going to let his father down but he has to do it. Oh! Gosh that gets me every time.
Ultimately, How To Train Your Dragon is a story about a father and a son, and the son coming into his own among the pressures of the community his father is in charge of. But there's honestly a more sentimental reason these moments were so standout for Cressida Cowell.
Cressida Cowell Based How To Train Your Dragon On Her Own Childhood
The Isle of Berk may connect its lore to Scandinavia and Norway specifically, but when Cowell was writing her novels, she was actually using her own childhood experiences to craft the narrative, which I'd never realized. As a child, she'd head from London to the islands of Scotland, and that's where her mind kept returning when she was writing the books.
For me because I made up the world, and it’s a world that’s very personal to me. The isle of Berk is real. It’s a little island in Scotland. We used to be dropped off by local boatman and dropped off two weeks later. Nothing on the island, no houses, nothing. This was the inspiration for my books. The father [in the movies] is my father. The movies are wonderful and the live action movie, isn't it just [stunning]? I cried and I know the story!
I'd never known that Gerard Butler's performance as Stoick the Vast was so personal to the author, but it's easy to see now why scenes between Mason Thames and Butler were so emotional for her. It's been years since her last island adventure, but it's clear those memories hold a dear place in her heart.
The authoress previously told Coast it was quite the "Robinson Crusoe" experience to be dropped off in the wilderness like that, and it led to her fascination with nature, Vikings and dragons. In 2003, she published How To Train Your Dragon, the first in a serious of 12 books that have sold millions of copies. The first movie with Dean DeBlois came out in 2010, and has spawned streaming spinoffs, an entire section of a theme park at Epic Universe, and a new series of Live Action movies.
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