Warner Bros.
6:00AM Thursday Jul 02, 2009
By Kevin Polowy
School vacation has never seemed longer. 'Potter' heads who've been
breathlessly waiting two years since the last movie from the mega-popular
franchise can finally exhale -- Harry, Ron, Hermione and their classmates are
back for year 6 of Hogwarts training in
'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' (opens July 15), which is shaping
up to be the most romantic -- and of course, mature -- installment yet.
We visited the 500,000-square foot Leavesden Film Studios in rural London
(imagine an interconnecting complex of 15 Home Depots, plus dazzling exterior
sets) to see where
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert
Grint and Emma
Watson have spent the better part of the last decade of their lives -- and
to get the scoop on their latest 'Potter' adventure. Keep reading for a sneak
peek from the set of 'Half-Blood Prince.' -- By
Kevin Polowy
1. Army of One
Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) has long since come to terms with a fate that sets him
up as the only wizard who can bring down Voldemort (Ralph
Fiennes). And in 'Half-Blood Prince' the training wheels truly come off, as
Dumbledore (Michael
Gambon) privately tutors Harry and even commands him to retrieve a key
memory out of the newly arrived professor Slughorn (Jim
Broadbent). "His want -- or his need -- in this film is basically to kill
Voldemort, and he realizes that the way in which he'll do this is to become
Dumbledore's favorite foot soldier," Radcliffe says. "That's the role you'll see
him gradually moving toward in this film."
2. Big Man on Campus
"We see a cocky and arrogant side to Ron on this one," says Rupert Grint about
the awkward but lovable carrottop he plays. "He's on the Quidditch team [as
starting goalkeeper], he's got a girlfriend, and he thinks he's quite cool." On
the flipside, "at times he can be a bit cocky and he annoys Hermione quite a
bit," Grint adds. Says director David
Yates: "There's a sort of middle-aged quality that develops in the
character, which is incredibly frustrating and irritating but very charming at
the same time." That's Ron, frustratingly and irritatingly charming.
3. Plenty More Malfoy
One character who gets a much more developed role in 'Half-Blood Prince' is
Harry's Hogwarts rival, Draco Malfoy, who in this film receives direct orders
from Lord Voldemort. Bad for Harry, good for Tom Felton,
the actor behind Malfoy. "It's really nice to take him to a higher level, rather
than just being an annoying git at the back of the classroom," Felton says.
"It's really nice that he's grown, he was quite a two-dimensional character in
the previous films." He's also got a girlfriend in this installment, Pansy
Parkinson (Scarlett Byrne). Felton's favorite scene this go-around? "To be able
to stand on [Harry's] nose has been a lifelong dream."
4. Bonus Footage
As faithful as 'Potter' directors have been to J.K. Rowling's source(ry)
throughout the series, fans have always delighted in the occasional extra scene.
In 'Half Blood-Prince,' scenes involving the evil Death Eaters terrorizing the
community -- only referenced by Rowling in the book -- are played out on screen.
Says director Yates, "We've introduced two moments in the film where we see the
Death Eaters do what Jo actually described them doing, but off the page as it
were." Also added: an early scene where Harry's emerging mojo is put on display
as he flirts with an attractive waitress on a train. "You immediately set up the
notion that suddenly these characters are a bit more sexualized," Yates says.
"They're aware of the opposite sex."
5. Game On!
A conspicuous absence since the third installment,
'Prisoner of Azkaban,' has been that magical (and extreme) sport known as
Quidditch. "I wanted to get Quidditch in the last film but we were so
overstuffed with things that it was really hard," explains Yates, adding that
the fun gaming sequence in 'Prince' is "kind of comedy Quidditch." Not everyone
on set was thrilled about the sport's heralded return though -- or at least
shooting it. "I have to say it was bit of an anticlimax," says Grint. "I really
sort of built it up and thought it would be great fun even though [Daniel
Radcliffe] said it was painful. He was definitely right. It's not the nicest
experience." Their director feels their pain: "[Brooms] aren't the most
seat-friendly contraptions."
6. Scrapping Scrimgeour
Of course, not every scene, detail or even character can make the cut when
adapting a 652-page book into a two-hour movie. A casualty of the page-to-screen
condensation in part 6 is Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour, who famously
visits the Muggle Prime Minister in the book. "We struggled to keep him in,"
says Yates. "It's a great scene in the book ... We loved that, and it was in and
it was out and it was in and it was out again." It was just announced that
Bill Nighy has signed on to 'Deathly Hallows,' and though the actor is
tight-lipped on who he'll play, the presumption is he will indeed be Scrimgeour.
7. Love Triangle No. 1
Despite threats of terrorism (via the Death Eaters) and suspected turncoats
roaming the halls of Hogwarts, there's always time for a little
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romance,
especially with a box of love potion-laced chocolates thrown into the mix with
the raging teenage hormones. Yates says the story "deals with the politics of
romance." Ron must balance the affections of Lavender Brown ("Lavender's
completely crazy," says Grint) with his long-gestating liaison with Hermione
(Emma Watson). "I think Hermione's beginning to acknowledge the fact that she
has feelings for him, which she's never done," says Watson. "She's always been
in denial." Adds Grint, "All the stuff with Lavender makes her go a bit crazy."
Poor guy, this Ron, surrounded by all these crazies.
8. New Kid on the Block
Jessie Cave,
who makes her 'Potter' debut as Ron's aforementioned love interest Lavender
Brown, insists there are no initiation rites for new cast members (good news for
you, 'Deathly Hallows' star Rhys Ifans).
But while Lavender is spunky and brisk, Cave admits to being the opposite. "I'm
quite shy and I'm not a loud character," she says. "But it's quite fun to play
somebody who is because everyone has a loud character inside of them wanting to
jump out."
9. Love Triangle No. 2
Meanwhile, Harry woos Ginny Weasley (Bonnie
Wright) away from her boyfriend, Dean Thomas (Alfie
Enoch), and seeks her brother Ron's approval. "The whole thing with Harry
and Ginny is quite confusing for Ron, because he's quite protective," Grint
says. But one scene featuring the three, where Ron obliviously plonks himself
down between the two lovebirds, should be good for DVD bloopers: "I have this
real problem with laughing through a take and that scene was quite hard," Grint
says. As for the hanky panky between Harry and Ginny, "It's very odd because
I've known Bonnie since she was about 9," Radcliffe says. Wright agrees, sort
of. "It is strange, but also it's more comfortable with someone you know rather
than just a random person."
10. Introducing Your New Potions Instructor
With each 'Potter' movie comes at least one new teacher, played by some of the
UK's most venerated actors. New to the party in 'Prince' is Jim Broadbent, who
plays Potions teacher Horace Slughorn. Says Radcliffe when asked if the
relationship between Harry and Slughorn will be as strained on screen as in the
books: "I think Harry ultimately likes Slughorn. I think he thinks he's a very
good person and his heart is in the right place, but he's just very
opportunistic and totally self-obsessed." Fun fact: Broadbent played Tom
Felton's father in the young actor's first film, 'The
Borrowers.'
11. Ist Bruno!
Also new to 'Prince' is director of photography Bruno Delbonnel, who shot the
gorgeous French flicks
'Amelie' and 'A
Very Long Engagement.' What does that mean to the average fan? "It'll be
warmer than the last film," director David Yates says of the movie's look. "'Order
of the Phoenix' was dealing with teenage angst and it was dealing with that
period in life where you start to rebel a wee bit and you're struggling against
authority and all of that, while this film is much warmer and much more
romantic."
12. Magical vs. Fantastical
One of the biggest goals (and challenges) on the set of 'Potter' movies has been
to maintain a consistent look and feel. "We've established a world and it's a
parallel world to our own," says David
Heyman, the 'Potter' producer who obtained the books' film rights. "We're
quite strict about making sure we don't stray, because sometimes directors or
contributors turn up for the first time, and it's very easy for them to stray
off into the realm of the fantastical as opposed to the magical. What we try and
establish is a real world that has a magical element, which is obviously not
real. But who knows? Maybe there are wizards out there. Maybe we are muggles,
after all."
13. Buddy Comedy
Harry, Ron and Hermione may be the tale's inseparable trio of BFFs, but behind
the scenes Radcliffe bonded most with an older soul -- Michael Gambon, who plays
Dumbledore. For the first couple months of filming, Radcliffe and Gambon were
the only actors on set. "The relationship between me and Michael really built up
over that time," Radcliffe says, adding that the two have similar senses of
humor. "When you know that you're both going to have to work together very
closely doing very difficult stuff, you really need to very, very quickly find
something that you can bond over." Radcliffe was especially tickled when Gambon
responded to news that Rowling had "outed" Dumbledore by "camping it up around
set for a couple weeks after that."
14. Kissing Co-Stars
"There's so much kissing going on in this book!" Watson says. And fans aren't
the only ones who get excited by the Hogwarts smooch fests. Radcliffe admits he
was disappointed he missed the kiss between Ron and Lavender, "Just 'cause I
thought it'd be pretty funny." According to Matthew
Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom, kissing scenes are usually shot on
closed sets, "so no one can go in and start laughing in the background," but Ron
and Lavender's kiss was filmed in front of most of the cast. The reserved Grint
describes the scene's filming as "quite embarrassing," but says, "I had a room
full of people cheering." Well, he must be doing something right.
15. Hints of 'Hallows'
"We've kind of altered our story to make sure we don't tread on the toes of what
comes in 'Deathly Hallows,'" says Yates about the final chapter, which was
released in bookstores only months before 'Half-Blood Prince' went into
production. Among the changes: A subplot surrounding Dumbledore's wand, and a
major development in the Ron and Hermione saga: "We had a kiss planned for
['Half-Blood Prince'], which we've sort of saved because we think it's better to
maintain that sexual tension." In other words, fans yearning for a taste of that
sugar will have to wait until Nov. 19, 2010, the day
'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I' opens. Unless, of course,
it's decided that the kiss will be better in
'Part II.' |
