First News couldn’t say yes quick enough when we were invited down to the set of Horrid Henry to watch the filming. We even managed to have a chat with Theo Stevenson, who plays Horrid Henry, and found out what mischief he gets up to with the Purple Hand gang.

Tell us about your character!

My name is Theo Stevenson and I play Horrid Henry. Horrid Henry is the leader of the gang and their fort is based at Henry’s house, so he has his friends coming over all the time.

Tell us about his gang! Who is Beefy Bert?

There’s Beefy Bert and he is really stupid. And all that he is capable of saying is “I Dunno”. Aerobic Al is a Brummie so he talks with a Birmingham accent. He is very sporty and lanky. Then there’s Brainy Brian. He’s really smart which is pretty straight forward. And Rude Ralph who always has something planned and always makes fart noises, which is why he is rude!

Is Henry really that horrid?

To be honest I don’t think he is too horrid, he’s just a normal kid. He’s horrid to Margaret and the girls and the teachers, but he is cool.

You all seem like really good friends now.

Yes you do get that way. Filming is sometimes really long days so you get to know people really well and can relax around them. There’s not much to worry about. Everyone plays about and has a lot of fun on set.

You have to continue your school work when you’re filming. What’s it like going to school on a film set?

It’s pretty rough. You have to do five hours school a day maximum and three hours minimum. So you can do five hours but then you have to stop. It’s pretty hard because if you think about it, you’re only allowed nine hours on set, but if you do five hours tutoring that’s more time studying than filming.

Is it hard to concentrate when you have to go from school to filming?

It is, but it’s not like school. Here you have a teacher you can call by her first name. It’s different but they try to make it as much like school as possible.

You filmed lots of fun scenes – like a big party in the science lab. What was that like?

I think the last couple of days doing scenes like that were the best days filming, when everyone was together and having fun. We had to learn a song before we started filming and we had choreography for it as well, so we knew what actions to do. I got to jump off a desk too, which was fun. They had, like, 50 cameras all around me and when I jumped off the table I had to air guitar.

Do they give you detention?

No, I asked that and they said that if we are that naughty we don’t detention, we get taken off the movie. But we didn’t think that was true. We got in trouble once and we just got biscuits!

Horrid Henry is about a naughty boy – what is the naughtiest thing you have done?

Last Halloween I did a trick that was funny. We had an attempt at making toffee apples, but then we thought it wasn’t very Halloweeny so what we did was get an onion instead of an apple and covered it in toffee and chocolate. Then, when a couple of kids came to the house and bit into it, it tasted gross!

Did you learn any new skills that were cool?

We all learned how to yoyo. We had a professional yoyo-er come in and show us how to yoyo. We can all pretty much do everything on the yoyo now. I have one at home and I never knew how to use it because it was too professional, but now it’s cool because I can do it.

The film is in 3D. What is it like watching yourself back?

It’s great. The weirdest thing actually was working with the photographer Liam. He does this thing where he takes two pictures of you. One picture you have to stick your arm out in front of the camera and then you have to stay so still and he moves the camera from side to side and takes two pictures. When he puts them together you have to look at them with special glasses and it looks like your arm is out in front of you and moving!

There are some pretty famous people in the movie – have you met them too?

Yes, we met Anjelica Houston and Dick and Dom. We didn’t really get to talk to Anjelica Houston but she was there. Kimberley from Girls Aloud is in it too. She is very cool.

Horrid Henry: The Movie is out now.