Ben Chaplin (l) & Alex Etel (r) Credit: Columbia Pictures

We know him as "Nessie", the Loch Ness "monster" but he's actually cute and friendly (most of the time) in the film The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep. The little and later very large guy is named Crusoe by a young boy played by now 13-year-old Alex Etel who finds him as an egg and raises him until he outgrows the family bathtub and ends up in the nearby Scottish lake. The film presents a great lesson on getting comfortable with the circle of life, love and loss.

We got to sit down with cutie Alex [who is taller and a bit more grown-up looking than he appears in the film], his costar Ben Chaplin, who plays a handyman who befriends Alex's character and Crusoe, and their director Jay Russell in Beverly Hills to learn all about filming this holiday treat. Alex didn't know how to swim before the film but was an expert in the water afterwards.

TeenHollywood: Alex, what was the hardest part, the swimming or the green screen special effects work?

Alex: The green screen work because [Crusoe] was a tennis ball on a stick. It was weird, trying to speak to a tennis ball on a stick.

TeenHollywood: How did you handle that because that relationship between your character and Crusoe is so important?