'How to Train Your Dragon' author Cressida Cowell reveals she thought dragons existed

Cressida Cowell wrote the iconic children's book series, How to Train Your Dragon. The animated films from DreamWorks Animation are a successful trilogy and are based on the books written by the British author. The Adventures of Hiccup and Toothless carried on with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World which released last year.

The village Kingdom Berk is now like a paradise where humans and dragons are friends and live together. Hiccup and Toothless are responsible to save Berk in case of any new dark threat. Hiccup and Toothless bond and the trilogy got a near to perfect goodbye with the last sequel. In a conversation with Indianexpress, Cressida shared what cracked the idea of this story in mind, its adaptations, and more. Read on:

Cressida Cowell on dragons

Cressida explained what inspired the colourful world including the Vikings and the dragons. She said that her father was an environmentalist whose job was in London but he loved the wilderness. Cressida and her father used to go to an island when she was a kid and stay there for two weeks, and during these times they had no contact with the outside world.

She said that this is what formed the idea of the island Vikings in her head. She then went on to explain that she thought that dragons really existed and she used to look for them in the caves and made up stories about them. This is how she gave birth to the colourful world and the relationship between her and her father inspired that of Stoick and Hiccup.

The author then went on to explain that she always makes sure that her books are visually appealing and full off beautiful illustrations as children, she said, are very imaginative. She said that if you want to intrigue children to watch the flick, they need to care about the character. 

Talking about whether she would like to see the flicks as live-action in the future and if she thinks animation was the correct way to go, she replied saying that back in 2005 live-action hadn’t reached this level of special effects in terms of technological advancements. Cowell mentioned that it would be fun to see the live-action adaptation and how that would be a different thing altogether. How to Train Your Dragon is currently available on Netflix for streaming.