only two films in which Lyons acted. The other was Model Behaviour, a mostly forgotten 1984 romantic comedy. Ward had had difficulty casting the role of Connor, having searched for and failed to find an actor who could appear a hero to nine-year-old Griffin but convey a sense of ordinariness to the audience. Apart from his role in Model Behaviour, Lyons had acted in off Broadway plays to favourable reviews. At the time Ward contacted him, having known him personally in New York, Lyons had not acted for two years and had taken up painting. He was married to Kely Lyons, one of Ward's co-writers, who had "always conceived of him as Connor". Chris Haywood as Arno: Haywood was an established actor who had played dozens of parts in Australian television and film when he was cast in The Navigator. Hamish McFarlane as Griffin: Ward saw thousands of schoolboys before casting McFarlane, who had never acted on screen before, as the boy visionary Griffin. Qualities Ward sought out included "something special about his eyes", the need for the actor "to look like a nine-year-old who could do a ten-hour day in a medieval mine, probably quite thin, and quite hardy... [and] he had to be capable of a little bit of humour and cheekiness". For his role, McFarlane won an Australian Film Institute Award for best actor. Despite this he did not continue an acting career into adulthood, instead becoming an assistant director on a range of New Zealand films and television shows. Marshall Napier as Searle: Napier was another established film actor, who had appeared in various New Zealand films including Goodbye Pork Pie and Came a Hot Friday. Noel Appleby as Ulf: Ward has claimed that he "found Ulf the Fat working for the city council in the Auckland sewers. Noel Appleby was shy during the audition and had no film experience, but he was the character... he turned out to be a natural actor". In fact Appleby had played minor but credited roles in three New Zealand films before The Navigator. He won an Australian Film Institute Award for best supporting actor for his role, and went on to act in several other New Zealand films, including two of the Lord of the Rings films. Soundtrack The soundtrack of The Navigator was composed by Davood Tabrizi and based on a huge variety of musical styles including Celtic