The
Harry Potter Trio:
Growing Up
Through the “Fire”
by Lynn B
 Daniel
Radcliffe, 16, Emma Watson, 15 and Rupert Grint, 17 have watched themselves
grow into teenhood in the Harry Potter films. This has gotta be much worse
than looking back at old photo albums and hating that awful haircut or
that dorky outfit your mom made you wear. These teens have to grow up
in front of millions of filmgoers! Being a teen is awkward enough so we’ve
got to hand it to the young actors.
In Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry faces Voldemort in the flesh,
Hermione goes to her first Holiday ball and Ron realizes he may have more
than friendship feelings for Hermione. In London recently, the actors
talked about their own life changes, the fun they had making this new
film and their future plans.. As usual Emma and Dan are super talkative
and Rupert is laid back with a few choice comments. Highlights: Emma wants
Ron and Hermione to just get together already! Dan feels awkward with
girls in real life and Ron feels lots older because, at 17 in England,
he’s out of school!
AGW: Do you
identify with the Potter kids growing older?
Dan: For
me, it is loads of fun playing Harry as he's getting older, because, when
we start Harry's 10th birthday it's almost as if it's in real life, not
just in the stories. People sort of grow extra emotions, which is partly
to do with hormones and all the trouble that they cause. And it's partly
a thing about growing up. You have other aspects to you, so it's fun playing
that in Harry as he grows older.
Emma: There's
a lot of speculation about whether we're going to outgrow our parts or
that the films will take longer than we will, but actually it works out
really well because each film takes about a year, which coincides with
us, during our year at school, so we're pretty much growing alongside
them. At the same time, everything that we're going through . . . they
are too.
Rupert: This
is quite good. There's always this thing of will you get too old for your
part? People play a lot younger than they actually are in real life. I
don't think it's as big an issue as a lot of people make it out to be.
AGW: Any parallels
between your character’s struggles with the dating scene and your
own?
Dan: There
is a parallel in that both me and Harry aren't very good with women. I've
got better now, I think, than I used to be. But I think any man who has
said he has never had an awkward moment with a girl is a liar or he's
delusional because he's been sitting there thinking ‘this is going
along really well’, and the girl is going ‘who is this man
and why is he still talking to me?’ [Emma laughs] That's sort of
the main parallel between me and Harry in the film. I would like to say
that I get huge amounts of attention, but I think there's a sort of dividing
thing between what people think they're going to get when they see the
film and what the reality is. I think it's grimmer possibly [laughter]
Rupert: [Laughs]
I'm pretty much the same as Danny. I'm probably very close to Ron really.
He's not very lucky and has some bad experiences.
Dan: That's
the thing that I quite like about Harry and Ron, they are the worst dates
in the world! There were these two poor girls who are played by Afshan
[Azad], the girl who plays Padma she had the misfortune of going out with
Ron. She's one of my best friends. I thought that it was just great because
you just feel so sorry for them because this night should be the best
night in the world for these girls, but it's horrible. Then you have those
scenes outside which is quite sort of true with those kinds of dances,
where you've got sort of the ballroom casualties who are outside weeping
because the night has gone so horribly.
 Emma:
Hermione included. That's the thing. I loved doing it so much because
I could relate to so much of what she was going through and I so know
that frustration where guys can be so insensitive. I can relate to a lot
of things that she experiences and all of her awkward moments, feeling
so unsure, and what that's all about. What's nice about the relationship
that her and Victor [her date for the ball] have was that Hermione is
so insecure about herself and she's never really had any attention from
any guy before so when she sees Victor looking at her it's one of those,
'Is that guy really looking at me or am I just crazy?' She is quite literally
being swept off of her feet. She doesn't know what is happening to her
and she gets caught up in this world wind with this incredibly famous
Quiddich player and she can't quite believe that it's happening to her.
So it's quite an emotional roller coaster for her.
AGW: Being
working actors, you can afford some cool stuff. What are some of your
favorite gadgets?
Dan: Gadgets,
yeah. I really do like gadgets. I went to Japan last year, and I got this
sort of spy camera. It was like disguised as a cigarette box, and that
was quite cool.
Emma: Probably
my i-pod. It comes with me everywhere, everywhere.
Rupert: I
find the i-pod thing hard because I'm quite obsessive about CDs, so I
like to have the actual CD with the little sleeve notes on the back and
the pictures. . . so for me it’s mainly CDs, books and DVDs, I suppose.
I haven't changed much in the last five years.
AGW: As you
get older do any of you think you’ll be a party animal or shock
people with any wild antics like Paris or Lindsay?
Emma: Hopefully
not.
Dan: I'm planning
on buying 20 Porsches and crashing them all, just to be extravagant. No.
I think it's a really good thing that we haven't done that because the
characters are so well-known and iconic. If we'd been going to every party
under the sun that we'd been invited to, it would have been hard for people
to divorce what they see in the film from what they see in magazines and
stuff. That basically would have been a mistake, so we basically only
go to the premieres.
Emma: Yeah,
I think I kind of have a responsibility to that as well. I don't think
we are party animals.
Dan: I certainly
quite enjoy not having the high profile thing. I quite like that because
I sort of feel like I'm fooling people. It's this massive thing and yet
it's still quite a low-key thing. I feel like I'm tricking everyone.
AGW: Do the
kids at school treat you differently than other classmates?
Emma: I started
a new school a couple of years ago. . After a while, they just accept
the fact that you're there all the time, and I don't get treated differently,
and that's how I like it. So it works out pretty well.
Dan: As Emma
said, originally when you go [to a new school], it feels like there's
a sort of novelty factor like ‘ah, look who it is’, as though
you're sort of running along with an extra arm or something, but after
a few weeks it sort of settles down, and they just go ‘oh that's
the kid with the extra arm’. So it doesn't seem to affect everyone
quite as much. And the only time it peaks is I was at school when the
third film came out. Then it went a bit sort of fever pitch and mad. But
it's not really a problem.
Rupert: I've
finished school now, so I don't get the same sort of reactions as that,
but getting recognized is pretty weird anyway. I get the odd person and
my hair at the moment sort of stands out a bit. I don't know how you could
avoid it so it's not really a problem.
AGW: Your
characters have some interesting conflicts in this film with Harry and
Ron at odds a bit and Hermione going out with a new guy. Was that fun
to play?
Emma: I loved
all the arguing. I thought it was really juicy. We'd always got along
perfectly and I think it's much more realistic that they would argue and
that there would be problems. So I thought it was great fun. It's quite
a dark book this one, and [the conflict] makes for a lot of the humor
which is nice, a bit of light relief.
Dan: What's
quite nice actually about the thing that goes on between Harry and Ron
in this one and all the tension is that it's funny to someone looking
in on it, but to them it's absolutely serious and they're really angry
at each other. Each of them feels that they have both behaved in a really
bad way and been betrayed. It's mutual blame, they're both to blame for
how they're acting with each other. But for someone else watching it,
it's quite funny, because in the long run it's actually quite trivial
what they're arguing about, as a lot of arguments are. But it does provide
a lot of humor.
 Rupert:
Yeah, it's also just again sort of them growing up. It’s more natural
and real.
AGW: You talk
about a lot of humor in the movie yet it is also very dark. Was it hard
to balance that do you think?
Emma: I think
it was difficult for [the filmmakers] to know what to do because there's
such a huge audience which are children. You get young kids being so into
it. People making the film really feel we don't want to make it too scary
because we're going to cut out this huge audience who so passionately
love the Harry Potter films. At the same time, they want to be faithful
to the book, which is a dark book. I think there's a really good balance,
because I really do think that it was faithful.
Dan: I think
it wouldn’t have been as hard for us as for Steve Kloves who wrote
the script. To adapt something as huge as the fourth book, I certainly
wouldn't envy that. He did an amazing job on it. To me the humor's absolutely
essential to the darkness in a way, because if you had that darkness running
the whole way through the film, by the end you'd be tired and it would
be completely ineffective, whereas if you've got the humor what's quite
nice with the Quiddich cup all wide-eyed sort of wonder and everything,
and that highlights the fact that suddenly they come out of the tent and
everything's ablaze. it's more of a shock when you go into that darker
world. So I think the humor's also sort of essential to that.
AGW: Emma,
you get to wear a gorgeous dress and be very regal in the ball scene.
It’s amazing when you come down the staircase. Did you have to shoot
that a lot and did you have any in-put into what your ball gown would
look like?
Emma: That
actually took a while. I didn't know there were so many ways you could
walk down stairs until that day. It was difficult. It was hard work. Mike
[Newell, the director] was giving me all these directions, ‘make
sure your shoulders are back, stand straight, hold your head up, make
sure you glide smoothly’. By the time I finally did it, I was an
absolute wreck. But hopefully, it looks okay. It’s an amazing transformation
for Hermione. . As for the costume, I had a little bit of input, but I
loved it so much anyway, there was nothing I really wanted to change about
it. Our costume dept. created a truly magical dress. It's beautiful, beautiful,
and there were fittings for it leading up to the ball scene. I think it
looks great.
AGW: And Daniel,
you have an extended underwater adventure scene. Was that hard for you?
Dan: I got
to swim, not in a dress, by the way! That was amazing. It was quite hard
work, actually. Normally I've got this thing in my mind that work can't
be fun because I always associate it with not enjoying it. I've never
associated Harry Potter with work in that way, but on these days, it was
tough. I trained for about 6 months beforehand. I was sharing somebody's
air from their scuba diving tank, so we both of had sort of regulators,
and then they'd say 3, 2 1, and on the 3, I would blow out all the air
in my lungs and then on the 1 I'd take a very big gulp of air and then
it was how much action you can do with that amount of breath in your body.
The hard thing was the fact that I wasn't actually allowed to let any
of the air out because Harry's supposed to become a fish with gills. There's
not supposed to be bubbles going around, so if I look at all pained…
Emma: You
know why.
Dan: But it
was good fun. I have to point out I had the most amazing stunt team who
backed me up and who I trained with for over six months and who were down
there in the tank with me, so they were fantastic.
AGW: Now that
it’s been four films for you, are you all still hoping to make acting
your career in future?
Rupert: Yeah,
I'm really enjoying it at the moment and doing all the Harry Potter films
is a really good sort of experience. I in the future want to do play all
sorts of things. It’s not a bad job. I want to continue definitely.
Emma: I don't
think Harry Potter will be the last thing I do in the business. Originally,
what I used to love was being on stage and sort of reacting to a live
audience. So maybe my calling is more in theatre. I don't know. I'll see.
There are so many different things you can do within it, but I don't know
where I'll end up yet but . . . definitely interested.
Dan: I just
love doing it. Why do I love it so much? The conclusion I reached was
that it’s like a power thing because you have a character and in
many ways it's up to you how that character is perceived by people who
are watching the film. Obviously, it's not completely up to you. There’s
the script and the direction as well but I love doing it. I have a huge
passion for acting, but also I'm quite interested in eventually directing
or something like that. Because I've been so inspired working with Chris
Columbus and Alfonso [Cuaron] and now Mike and having conversations with
David Yates who's directing the fifth film. And also talking to Gary Oldman,
who directed Nil By Mouth, a fantastic film. He just said ‘when
you're doing it, you're creating all the time’, which sounds quite
appealing to me.
AGW: Who is
one of your favorite older characters in these films that you might have
liked to have played if you were older?
Dan: Sirius
probably. Mainly because Gary Oldman played him and I think that he's
one of the most brilliant actors. Sirius is sort of very similar to Harry.
It’s a relationship sort of based on mutual need for someone who
is gone. So with me and Sirius, it's partly based on the fact that we
like each other, we're very close, but it's partly based on the fact that
we both miss James and he's clinging on to James through me and I'm trying
to get to know my father through him. I think that for me, getting to
play Sirius, it would've been nice to look at Harry from another angle.
So maybe when they do the remake in fifty years time I'll be lining up
for that.
Emma: Rita
Skeeter because she's so deliciously evil. She's a great personality and
I think that she'd be so much fun to play because she's funny, but there's
also something very real about her and her costume is fantastic.
Rupert: Yeah.
I don't know. I think that I've always liked Hagrid. He’s pretty
cool really. Probably him. I don't know why. He's tall.
AGW: Favorite
actors and music?
Rupert: I'm
quite into comedy films mainly. I don't know. When I was younger I quite
liked Jim Carrey. Dumb and Dumber and I like Mike Meyers as well
because of Shrek. So maybe them. Music? I'm into sort of rock.
I quite like AC/DC. They’re cool.
Emma: There
are so many people. I've never had any one person that I particularly
idolized or thought, 'Wow. I want to be just like them.' It used to be
when I was younger that I loved Julia Roberts. There's something really
appealing about her. And probably recently I've loved what Natalie Portman
has done, and not just onscreen, but as herself and how she handles herself.
I think that she's done a really good job. I love people like Renee Zellweger
who aren't afraid to look unattractive and really put themselves into
a character role and to really be an actress instead of just thinking
about, 'Oh, am I sitting on screen pouting and looking beautiful?' Because
that's not really what it's about. Nicole Kidman has had a fantastic career
and has done so many different things. She's been really successful.
Music. Okay.
This is kind of difficult because I like so many different things and
I have so many different musical influences in my life. My dad has gotten
me into Eric Clapton, BB King and loads and loads of stuff like that.
And then from my mum Elvis Presley, and then me myself, there's music
that I like to dance to. So I'm really into hip hop and that sort of thing,
and then there's thing that I just like listening to. I like Damian Rice.
I love music generally. Whenever you come into my room at my house I always
have music playing.
 Dan:
In a way it's quite hard to think of actors that I want to work with that
we haven't. We've been incredibly lucky really to sort of work with the
best British actors of their generation. There's been Gary Oldman and
now Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon it's really sort of insane who we've
worked with. It's amazing. Other actors that I would like to work with?
I actually think Natalie Portman, she's a fantastic actress and also beautiful
which is always a plus if you're going to work with someone and there's
a German actor who I think is absolutely amazing. Daniel Bruhl who's in
The Educators and he's in Goodbye Lenin as well. He's
amazing. Gael Garcia Bernal is also amazing. To be honest, older actors
that I just look up to for what they've done would be like Peter Sellers.
He did the most amazing films like Being There and Dr. Strangelove
which I think he played four parts in or something. So he's just amazing.
But with music,
there's a band the other day that I liked called We Are Scientists. Who
else? The Rakes. Dogs. They're not similar at all, those. The new Franz
Ferdinand is actually extraordinary, that album is brilliant. It's sort
of like that indie rock. I also like more sort of orchestral stuff. Hands
up if you've heard of the band called God Speed You Black Emperor. Fantastic!
Brilliant. My dad got me into sort of David Bowie and T-Rex. So I like
that. 'Electric Warrior.' What a brilliant album, but when we were in
San Francisco he bought 'Melanie's Greatest Hits' and it's brilliant.
It's absolutely fantastic. There's this one song called 'Look What They've
Done To My Song, Ma' and it's fantastic. So those are probably sort of
some of them at the moment.
AGW: Dan,
what stands out for you in this film that didn’t in the others for
Harry?
Dan: I think
that the main theme of the whole series is about a loss of innocence.
If you look at the first one it's all sort of very wide eyed and almost
naive. He's quite naive in thinking because it's a magical world it's
going to be better than the world that he's come from. Whereas in actual
fact it's not. There are further extremes. It can have extremes of joy
which possibly are more than in the normal human world, but also the depths
that people can sink to in people like Voldemort. I think that in this
film he starts to wake up to that fact even more than in the last one.
I think that he comes to the realization that if he's going to make it
in life he's going to be making it alone. I think that's probably the
main thing that he experiences, that he sort of discovers in this film.
AGW: Is there
anything you would love for J.K. Rowling to not put in the next book so
you don’t have to do it in the movie?
Dan: If Quidditch
isn't absolutely necessary, maybe don't put that in there [Laughs]. I
read in an interview with her a while ago saying that it's actually become
quite a chore writing Quidditch more. It's quite tough to film as well.
So it's tough on both of us and no one is benefiting [Laughs]. So that'd
probably be what I would say. But then again it's incredibly exciting
for people to watch and so there is that as well.
Emma: I'm
going to make Rupert incredibly uncomfortable now. Hermione and Ron just
need to get together. It's been so long now. It's just so wrong and they’re
so just so right. It just needs to happen and they need to get on with
it. If that doesn't happen I'm going to be really frustrated. I want them
to end up together.
Rupert: I
don’t feel so different but I actually like the Quidditch really.
AGW: Are you
all very attached to these characters like a best friend and are you excited
about doing the rest of the films?
Rupert: Yeah.
I could sort of like Ron from the beginning. We’re both ginger for
one. Obviously, playing someone for quite a long time you get to know
them. I'm really looking forward to doing all the next films I think.
Emma: I'm
hugely attached to Hermione's character because there's so much of me
that goes into her, and so much of my experiences. One thing that Mike
did was he really, really made me think about when I was acting was kind
of regurgitating my own experiences and sort of putting them into….
Dan: Eww,
that's quite disgusting [Laughs].
Emma: [Laughs]
Sorry. He made me apply them to what Hermione was going to. I know that
if anyone else were to play Hermione I wouldn't be able to deal with that.
It would kill me. I’d go after her. I'm hugely close to her.
Dan: Whoa!
a threat to future Hermiones. I think that you can't really help, but
feel attached to your character. I certainly can't help, but feel attached
to him in some ways. I don't know if me playing him has turned out how
I am like him now or being so close to him over the past five years has
influenced my own character. I mean, I don't think that I'm going to develop
a complex over it or anything, but it's a sort of slightly interesting
thing. Yeah. I mean, it's very hard to separate yourself from him in some
ways, but ultimately you go home at night and it's not like you stay in
character all the time. It would be very hard to be a method actor on
'Harry Potter' because then you'd have to find the figure of ultimate
evil somewhere.
Emma: It's
such a huge commitment and I don't think that anyone can appreciate it
unless you're on it the amount of time that everything takes. An eleven
month film is huge and it's not just a little bit everyday. It's a full
day and you work adult hours and so I think I would never want to do it
if I felt that I wasn't going to give it a hundred percent. I really,
I mean, so I'm not really thinking about the future. You just sort of
have to take it one at a time because otherwise you just get a little
bit overwhelmed I think
AGW: And,
Dan, do you look forward to the future Harry films?
Dan: Ultimately
it comes down to the fact of whether we're still enjoying it. If we are
then I think it would be sort of stupid not to do them. If the script
is good and it's a challenge and it's an interesting director and as long
as I'm doing enough other stuff around the same time then I think it'll
be fine. Also, I sort of try to read the books when they come out very
impartially and not make up my mind, but the fact is that when I was reading
the sixth book there were bits in there that I was going, 'God. I would
love to do that because it's so good.' So, yeah.
AGW: Do you
get to read the books earlier than the rest of the world?
Dan: Oh, no.
No. No. I tell my friends that I do. I tell my friends that I know what's
going on and then I make up stories. But I don't actually get them earlier.
Pictures
courtesy of and copyright Warner Brothers, 2005
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