Diverse directors
SheKnows: Could you talk about working with director David Yates as compared with your other Potter directors?
Daniel Radcliffe: I have nothing but great things to say about David. We get closer every year. We have a very good relationship, not only professionally, but personally as well. I think as we go on in the films, we become more in tune with each other to the point where he can say ‘Cut’ and I will immediately know without having to see or hear. I will know whether what I’ve just done is what he wanted simply because I know what he’s looking for in a performance. I can’t always get there, but he’s always very good at being honest with me as well and just saying to me, ‘You can be better than that.’ That’s a wonderful thing to have, that kind of trust and a relationship with a director.
Emma Watson: David is great in the sense that he won’t let you do anything other than the very best that you can produce. Sometimes that means being quite a hard task master. I think that David can tell whether I’m acting or not by looking at my back, genuinely. He’s that scary. He just knows when you’re really there and in the moment and trying and when you’re not. A year ago he would say things to me, like, ‘That was really great. A very good performance, but you’re acting.’ He won’t settle for anything less than a truthful, honest performance that comes from somewhere that’s really genuine for you. I’ve learned a lot from him. He’s very generous with his time. If you want to talk something over he’s more than willing to help you. He’s very patient.
Rupert Grint: He’s patient, yeah, which is quite a good thing to have really when you’re working with me and Dan because we laugh a lot. It must be a bit annoying. But he’s great, such a lovely guy. He’s my favorite that we’ve had. Definitely, yeah.
Daniel Radcliffe: I think also the thing with David is that even if he was shouting it would be very hard to tell. David is a very, very softly spoken man. So his manner is rather wonderful on set. You would never pick him out as the director. Nothing about him screams, ‘I am the creative power house of this movie!’ He’s very, very quiet. What he has as director, as well, is the real ability to be able to see the entire storyline in his head in one frame almost and to be able to encapsulate it all in his mind at any given moment. So he can pick out moments from the end of the fifth film and find a relevance with them at the beginning of the seventh. He’s just got a fantastic vision of the films and from day one. His enthusiasm for being on ‘Potter’ is the same now as it was on the day one of the first film that he did with us.
Emma Watson: He’s like a kid in the candy store. He’s just super excited by everything and to be doing what he’s doing. Alfonso (Cuaron) and Mike and Chris (Columbus) all look like they’d aged about ten years after directing one film. But he just loves every second of it and there’s just no ego with David.
Tom Felton: He actually does that sort of five-year-old thing where if he gets a shot he likes he sort of (he starts clapping) he does that, yeah. You know he’s happy then. He’s a joy to work with, incredibly gentle-natured. He certainly got me through this film.
Draco’s deadly dilemma
SheKnows: Tom, you were brilliant as Draco in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. How did you approach taking him from cocky to more vulnerable throughout the movie?
Tom Felton: Thank you. This neatly links in with David, really. I was terrified before starting the film about approaching him in this whole new light. He’s always been very two-dimensional in previous years and we had to sort of take a new angle with it and David was very clear and concise with what he wanted. This sort of ghost-like image would glaze over his eyes constantly. He did some rehearsals with Michael (Gambon) and Alan (Rickman) and stuff which I was sh**ting myself massively before doing but he was like a father almost and he carried on and made sure that it was all okay so, certainly, any praise I get is down to his great direction.
Daniel Radcliffe: I’ve said all this to you, privately.
Tom Felton: Oh, don’t embarrass me, mate.
Daniel Radcliffe: I think for Tom to come in on this film, having, if we’re honest, not been asked to do a great deal for the last few years, to come in a give the performance he
gives in this 6th film is remarkable. It’s a fantastic performance.
Tom Felton: You are too kind, sir. Thank you.
SheKnows: Dan, can you describe the effects sequence in the water? Was that CGI or you were actually underwater breathing out of a tank?
Daniel Radcliffe: I was holding my breath, certainly. To be honest, it was quite easy going, this particular underwater scene in comparison to what we did on film four where I was underwater for about forty-one hours over the course of a month. This one, I was only under maybe two days with the filming underwater. It was a stunt woman who was wrapping herself around me. It was actually one of the coolest moments of my career, bursting through the surface of the water being surrounded by this circle of real fire.
SheKnows: Yeow! How does that work?
Daniel Radcliffe: They have a little pipeline just underneath the surface of the water which shoots up bubbles of kerosene, or whatever, propane. Then they kind of ignite it just on the surface. So the surface of the water goes just black with soot and it’s kind of horrible but it’s also great fun. Then I get to climb up onto to the kind of central island where I look up and see Michael Gambon there looking like God or Moses, with fire swirling high around his head. It was one of those moments where, it does not matter how many more films I do, I will never have this scene or anything like ever again.
A Potter Finale in two parts
SheKnows: Are you happy with the way the next film is shaping up?
Daniel Radcliffe: I couldn’t be happier, personally. I’m so excited about the seventh film. I don’t know if anyone else has had the same experience as me over the last couple of days, but seeing the sixth film again we are doing something very, very different. We’re not at Hogwarts. The difference that makes is extraordinary.
Emma Watson: Yeah. It’s not very often that, in the middle of filmmaking, you stop and go, ‘This is going to be awesome.’ I’ve done that on a number of occasions. We’ve just done this amazing scene in the forest where I’m being chased by the Snatchers. I’ve never done anything like it, nothing even close. I’ve never done any serious stunts or any real action. It’s so exciting and just really dynamic. I think because all of us are finished with school and we’re all just totally focused on this finale and it’s out of Hogwarts and just about the three of us, it’s just going to be … or I hope it’s going to be brilliant. It feels totally different. I feel like I’m on a different film. The other films have this structure where we come into the great hall and then we have this talk. That’s just kind of gone. It’s going to be great.
SheKnows: How do you feel when author J.K. Rowling visits the sets and have you talked to her much about your characters?
Tom Felton: I haven’t seen her for a while on set but I had the pleasure of seeing her two nights ago at the London premiere and, obviously, as an actor in a part of her project, you do what to hear what she’s got to say and she was very complimentary about the whole film which, honestly, is the ultimate honor at the end of it, really. For her to be happy with the performances is truly great for us.
Daniel Radcliffe: Absolutely. She’s always been very, very good at letting go of the films and realizing that they’re totally separate entities from the books. So she’s not been too precious about anything. She realizes that things have to be cut in order to make them viewable. So she’s always been very good and when she comes out to the set it’s a pleasure. It’s a rare treat because I don’t think she wants us to feel that she’s come kind of prying. She’s always been wonderful and is an incredibly gracious and lovely woman.
SheKnows: Was she okay with anything added in the films?
Daniel Radcliffe: Just for the record, it might be interesting to note that the only thing thus far, in six films, that has been onscreen which is not in the books that she said, ‘I wish I thought of that -‘ was a thing that Alfonso Cuaron had on the third ‘Potter’ film: To make the temperature drop when the Dementors came by so that you would see the water freeze over. That’s the only thing that she’s gone, ‘Oh, God. I wish I thought of that.’ Just a little bit of ‘Potter’ trivia for you.
Bonnie Wright: I also admire the sense of trust she’s given a lot of people, like the people in the art department and costume and the whole idea of the visual aspects of the film,I think it shows that she trusts the creative perfection everyone seems to put in these films. Everyone never leaves out any description at all. But, I think, unfortunately, a lot of her world is not seen in the films.
SheKnows: So, Rupert, how is the swine flu now. Are you okay now?
Rupert Grint: I’m fine now, yeah. You’re all safe.
Tom Felton: Run!
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