Character page for the 2003 Peter Pan film adaptation.
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Peter
Peter Pan
Played by: Jeremy Sumpter
Dubbed by: Olivier Martret (European French)
- Adaptational Nice Guy: He retains the trolling, insolence, and insensitivity of the original, but his most ruthless side is swept under the rug.
- Badass Adorable: A cute little boy, and an expert Master Swordsman.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Peter Pan does not reason like a normal human, not even a normal boy. He simply cannot fathom anything else than the downside of growing up, not even his own feelings. As soon as it gets away from having fun and adventures, he's deeply troubled.
- Broken Ace: Peter is The Ace to everyone in Neverland, but it's soon shown that he is a deeply lonely and pitiable boy who can never be truly happy.
- The Charmer: So very much. As Wendy says, "It is perfectly delightful the way you talk about girls!" And that little grin and mock-modest shrug he gives toward the end—Oh, the cleverness of him!
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Played straight with Tink and Tiger Lily, but played with as he does realizes his blooming feelings for Wendy, he just does not understand them and refuses to acknowledge them.
- The Fair Folk: He's more fairy than human now, being the Fisher King of Neverland and more of the personification of childhood than a real child.
- Fisher King: He's the heart of Neverland, with spring blooming when he's there, bright sunrise (and northern lights) when he's happy, and storms brewing when he's sad.
- Flight: He cannot be Peter Pan without this power. He's a natural, way better at it than anyone else.
- The Hero: As usual. Unless you consider Wendy.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: A blond and very lovable and charming boy.
- Immortal Immaturity: Peter Pan will never be able to mature, learn or experience Character Development of any sort.
- Innocently Insensitive: Never realises how inconsiderate he is to Wendy, as he just cannot grasp her need to live more than fun and adventures.
- Heroic Second Wind: Hook's Breaking Speech destroys his will to live, but Wendy hidden kiss restores it and boosts his power tenfold.
- Never Grew Up: Peter is a boy who refuses to grow up.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Jeremy Sumpter kept his American accent…which makes him stand out from the other Lost Boys and his Anglo costars. Averted when he imitates Hook.
- Not Growing Up Sucks: Not that he would ever be caught dead admitting it and never fully realising it, but deep down, he knows that he can never be complete. He even acknowledges at the end that it would be an "awfully big adventure".
- The Power of Love: He's powered by happiness and fun. Wendy's "hidden kiss at the corner of her lips" gives him so much power that he sends all pirates but Hook overboard with a mighty shockwave.
- Pretty Boy: He's quite attractive.
- Protagonist Title: Surprising, isn't it?
- Puppy Love: He's around twelve and has feelings for Wendy, though he doesn't understand them.
- Really 700 Years Old: Peter Pan's true age is unknown, but he is implied to be hundreds of years old.
- Troll: A light-hearted one who loves to prank and make fools of pirates.
Wendy
Wendy Darling
Played by: Rachel Hurd-Wood (young), Saffron Burrows (adult narrator)
Dubbed by: Joséphine Ropion (young, European French), Françoise Cadol (adult narrator, European French)
- Action Girl: Wendy wielding a sword against pirates.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Her sword-fighting games with John allow her to handily use a proper sword against the pirates at Skull Rock. Justified as Neverland is made up of the collective games and imaginings of children.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: She's a compassionate and imaginative girl with blue eyes.
- First Kiss: While she cannot be with Peter, hers will always belong to him.The Lost Boys: "Brace yourselves guys. That's powerful things!"
- Growing Up Sucks: Wendy certainly thinks so, which is why she's willing to run away to Neverland. She changes her mind when she realises she was only afraid of it because she wasn't ready for it. She realises that there are benefits and good things about growing up.
- Narrator All Along: The grown-up Wendy is revealed to be telling the story.
- Pajama-Clad Hero: She wears her nightwear throughout her adventure in Neverland.
- Precocious Crush: While Wendy has an innocent crush on Peter, she also feels attracted to the older Captain Hook. At one point in the film, Wendy snaps at Peter, in a moment of anger, that she Likes Older Men.Wendy: "I find Captain Hook to be a man of feeling! [...] You're just a boy."
- Puppy Love: The adaptation puts more emphasis on Wendy's crush on Peter than others.
- The Storyteller: What first attracts Peter to her. Wendy is shown to often tell stories to her younger brothers. The entire film is another story she's telling, possibly to her own children.
- Supporting Protagonist: The film sets the story around Wendy, her fear of losing herself growing up under the rigid Victorian code, her escape to Neverland, her blooming feelings for Peter, and realising that this is a dead end. In fact, she can be considered as The Hero of this adaptation.
John
John Darling
Played by: Harry Newell
Dubbed by: Maxime Baudouin (European French)
- Age Lift: John is eight in the book. He is around eleven or twelve in the movie.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Despite John claiming that he and his brother are English gentlemen and that "English gentlemen do not beg," he crumbles and does it anyway.
- Honour Before Reason: John gives away himself and Michael to Hook's pirates when he demands that Hook unhand Tiger Lily. While gallant, all it does is get them captured as well.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: With Tiger Lily, as her Action Girl and Tsundere tendencies are played up, while John's scholarly leanings are emphasized.
- Pajama-Clad Hero: He spends his entire time in Neverland in his nightshirt.
- Took a Level in Badass: When blown off a cloud by a harpoon gun, John and Michael are too scared to even fly and can only cling to the cloud and call for Peter to help them. Later, at Skull Rock, John punches a pirate in the face and single-handedly raises the gate so everyone can escape.
Michael
Michael Darling
Played by: Freddie Popplewell
Dubbed by: Gwenvin Sommier (European French)
- Age Lift: In the book, he's around three or four, but in the movie, he's eight.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The first to get down on his knees and start begging to be spared when about to be drowned.
- Pajama-Clad Hero: Along with Wendy and John, he spends his entire time in Neverland in his nightshirt.
- Took a Level in Badass: Like John, initially he's rather helpless against the pirates who've taken him, John, and Tiger Lily hostage. After one beheads his teddy bear, he fights back and at the end of the film single-handedly prevents Smee from escaping in a rowboat and steals all his pilfered treasure.
Captain Hook
Captain James Hook
Played by: Jason Isaacs
Dubbed by: Bernard Gabay (European French)
- Adaptational Attractiveness: On top of being scary, he's played up as attractive. Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie also described him as such: "In a word, [Captain James Hook was] the handsomest man I have ever seen, though, at the same time, perhaps slightly disgusting."
- Adaptational Jerkass: The original play's and novel's versions of Hook were dark, yes, but the movie's version goes even further than that, making him a very effective psychological manipulator and adding sexual predator vibes in his relationship with Wendy.
- Badass Bookworm: Hook is a refined and erudite art-lover who enjoys stories, plays the piano, and writes music, but he is not the captain of a fearsome gang of cutthroats for nothing.
- Big Bad: As usual.
- Break Them by Talking: Gives a blistering speech to Peter Pan during the Final Battle, telling him that Wendy cannot and will never stay with him, destroying all his happy thoughts and will to live.
- Dressed to Plunder: He's a pirate, is he not?
- Exact Words: Hook promises Wendy that none of his men will follow her to Peter Pan's lair. Too bad he never said anything about his Pirate Parrot.
- Face Death with Dignity: Averted at first, as he loses the power to fly right over the ticking crocodile jumping to catch him, he frantically flails and yells all sorts of comically gory "happy thoughts" to stay afloat. But as it fails and Wendy and the Lost Boys keep yelling "Old! Alone! Done For!" over and over, he resigns himself, straightens himself up, crosses his arms on his chest, and mutters "Old. Alone. Done For..." before falling into the crocodile's maw to end Swallowed Whole.
- Faux Affably Evil: A very polite and formal man who will shoot you dead if you so much as annoy him and gleefully kill you in gruesome ways.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Hook has eyes "blue as forget-me-nots", something that's Lampshaded several times.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Even though he was trying to emotionally break Peter with his Break Them by Talking speech, he is proven to be partially right in the movie’s alternative ending. Wendy does marry another man, but she still remembers Peter.
- Man of Wealth and Taste: A distinguished man who loves fine food, dapper clothing, music, and literature.
- Manipulative Bastard: Hook is very good at reading out how people work and pushing people's buttons. He first plays on Tinker Bell's abandonment, then on Wendy's insecurities about growing up; Peter Pan being unable to truly understand her; and her pubescent crush on him, almost convincing her to join his crew. Finally, understanding Peter's feelings better than he does, he thoroughly breaks him with words alone.
- No Sense of Personal Space: To a very unsettling degree. He has several scenes where he gets close to Peter and Wendy. Jason Isaacs states that filming these scenes made him very uncomfortable (understandably so).
- Oh, Crap!: When he encounters the croc at Skull Rock, he looks terrified out of his mind and frantically yells at his crew to shoot it.
- Pirate: Well, duh!
- Pirate Parrot: He's a captain who has a parrot.
- Precocious Crush: Actor Jason Isaacs, who played Hook in the film, stated that Wendy Darling had an All Girls Want Bad Boys crush on the older pirate due to his handsome looks and dark allure: "J.M. Barrie wrote a book about a little girl [Wendy] who was hitting puberty...in those days, [in the Edwardian era], that meant you'd better have sex, have children, and build a family...[so she goes to Neverland], but there's only one man in that world [Hook], and he's strangely attractive. Sexually, there's something weird about his allure, but he's also repulsive." While Wendy is 12-13 years old in the film, Hook looks to be about 40 years old.
- Really 700 Years Old: While Hook's exact age is unknown, he is heavily implied to be from the Golden Age of Piracy, which was from 1650 to 1726. In the original Peter Pan book, author J.M. Barrie also notes that Hook served as "Blackbeard's bo'sun", with Blackbeard being active as a pirate from 1716 to 1718. Meanwhile, the film takes place in 1904, in Edwardian-era London, and actor Jason Isaacs was 40 years old when he played Hook in the movie. This means that Hook is at least 220 years old during the events of the film, which makes his sexual predator vibes towards Wendy all the more alarming.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: A very well-dressed and elegant man.
- A Sinister Clue: Played true to the book in the 2003 live-action version, where they kept it on the actor's right hand to allow him precise control over it, such as when he uses the tip to settle Smee's glasses on his nose.
- Sword and Gun: He's a Master Swordsman foremost but also a crackshot with flintlocks and rifles.
- Would Hurt a Child: Oh, wouldn't he just.
Tinker Bell
Tinker Bell
Played by: Ludivine Sagnier
Dubbed by: Ludivine Sagnier (European French)
- Clingy Jealous Girl: She hates having competition for Peter in Wendy, although the narration clarifies that fairies are too small to have room for more than one emotion at a time. So she's just jealous around the time the story starts.
- Disney Death: She dies from the poisoned drink she consumed, but she is saved by various characters' beliefs in fairies.
- Heroic Sacrifice: When she realises that Hook poisoned Peter's drink, she flies in between Peter's lips and the cup, drinking it instead of Peter.
Tiger Lily
Tiger Lily
Played by: Carsen Gray
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Her book counterpart was one of Peter's admirers and had no interaction with John or any of the other boys. Here, though, it's implied she and the Indians are allies to Peter, Tiger Lily has no apparent feelings for him, and her encounter at Skull Rock is shared with John and Michael.
- Big Damn Kiss: After John punches out a pirate, Tiger Lily rewards him with a big smooch.
- Defiant Captive: When Hook captures her and questions her about John's and Michael’s whereabouts, she responds with an angry statement in her native language before she spits at him. And unlike John and Michael, she refuses to beg for her life when the pirates goad them.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: With John, as her Action Girl and Tsundere tendencies are played up, while John's scholarly leanings are emphasized.
