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New Interviews from Special Australian DVD
Daniel Radcliffe - Harry Potter
ON HIS CHARACTER
He starts off almost in the same state of mind as he did in the second, but
being very self assured. But that gradually kind of vanishes as he finds out
more things about his past that he didn't realize and he starts to, as most
teenagers do when they go through their teenage years, be incredibly unsure
of himself. And he didn't quite know how to act around a lot of people, I
don't think, as well.
ON ALFONSO CUARON
It's been great, he's, he's just, he's a very cool guy, he's kind of, he
came with a lot of new ideas for all of us actually and what was inter, 'cause
people often kind of say, was daunting kind of having new director and the
reason it wasn't was because he just, we were given so much rehearsal time
with him prior to the actual start of filming that we really got to know
him in that time. We just chat and talk about characters and just kind of
hang out really.
ON GARY OLDMAN
Gary Oldman is such an amazing actor and when I first met him I thought I
was going to feel very intimidated by him because of all the films he's in
like "Sid and Nancy" and "Leon." I thought I was going to be really scared but he's actually a really cool guy and really nice, so I really just
felt completely relaxed around him.
ON THE STORY
In the third book, Harry finds out that there was this kind of this group of
four people. There was Peter Pettigrew, played by Timothy Spall, then there
was Sirius Black, Professor Lupin, and James Potter, who's my dad. And
basically, Lupin has grown up and he fits into the story in the way that he
is the next Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at school. It's about
maybe half way through the film that Harry finds out that Lupin was really
great friends with his dad and his mum, and so that's how he develops. Through Lupin, Harry finds out a lot of things about his parents. Lupin's a very instrumental character in the film. Not only that, but also I think probably the key scenes, they key emotional scenes, which basically make up the heart of the film seem to me to be between Harry and Lupin almost every time. So yeah, he's such an important character.
ON THE STORY (Part Two)
Again it's a lot darker, but that's only because the books are a lot
darker. I mean, the books grow and grow more and more scary basically and
I think that's just another progression. It's very dark. The second film very action packed and there was a lot of emotional intensity but not really to the level of the third. The third film is incredibly intense emotionally. Harry is basically
becoming a teenager and all teenagers kind of have a lot of problems, but
Harry is majorly screwed up in this one.
ON HIS CHARACTER (Part Two)
First of all, he thinks someone is actually trying to kill him. Over the
first two films he's kind of developed this image in his own mind of him
being this kind of all-powerful kind of wizard. He's defeated Voldemort
twice and he's very confident. He's getting more confident about his powers,
but then at the beginning, he faints when he sees something called a
dementor and so he loses all that confidence. Then he discovers that
someone is out to kill him and he's a lot angrier in this film.
Rupert Grint - Ron Weasley
ON REUNITING WITH THE CAST
It's really good to see Dan, Emma and all the other cast as well. Like
Matthew, Devon, all the others people like that, it's really fun. It's like,
in a way, kind of going back to school but much, much better than that.
ON NEW THINGS
I was just looking forward to like all the dementors and stuff like that
and getting a new owl and a new wand, it's gonna be cool.
ON THE FILM
It was mainly Alfonso, really. He said that you should like customize
it how you would if you were really at school. He was into that art like doing it yourself so it feels more natural. So yeah, we just kind of did what we felt comfortable.
ON THE WHOMPING WILLOW STUNTS
That was one of my favourite scenes. When we did this scene, they had me
all padded up and I was padded up with a harness on my leg and they
attached all this like bungy rope stuff. And all the stunt guys were
pulling me from the tree, and they dragged me into the tree and it was
really fun.
Emma Watson- Hermione Granger
ON ALFONSO CUARON
Alfonso, he was very trusting, he wanted us to put a lot of ourselves and our thoughts into the characters, so he told us, "You know, if there's anything wrong with the script that you've been given, if you don't feel that it's natural or that it works then you just say and we can change it." Whenever I got stuck I'd always be going to him, you know: "How should I do it?", "Tell me what to do." He'd go, "No, you've got to do it yourself, it's got to come from you." That freedom was brilliant. It's been a really learning experience, this one.
ON HER CHARACTER
I'm in jeans, yes, yes, I'm in jeans. Thank god and not another one of
those skirts and the itchy jumpers. It's improved so much, it's just much
more contemporary, it's much more casual, and it makes you feel so much
more at ease. This book is about being teenagers and it's taken
the varnish off, it's what's underneath and it's much more raw. It's great,
it's really good.
ON HER CHARACTER (Part Two)
She gets chased by a werewolf, she's attacked by a tree, she's turning
back in time, she's trying to get to all of her ridiculous quantities of
lessons, she's doing everything.
ON RON AND HERMIONE'S RELATIONSHIP
I never thought that the whole cat and the rat fight thing could again be just any excuse to make it out that they hate each other. Any excuse, they're always niggling each other and always having a go at each other and just about stupid things, when you just think, "Oh god, it's not worth it, just let it go." But they're
just doing it because they're always this, there's always this threat that
they might actually like each other and they don't like that at all.
Tom Felton - Draco Malfoy
ON HIS FAVOURITE SCENE
In this film there were quite a few scenes I enjoyed filming. Probably my
favourite, which is a new experience for me altogether, was in Hogsmeade
(well, in the film, not in real life). It was an indoor snow set, and I'd never been on or seen indoor snow so to speak, so it was fun. And it was a new experience being in the fake snow while being very hot and sort of sweating in the snow. It's a bit of a daunting experience. It was fun, we had a laugh.
ON HIS CHARACTER
Well, Draco himself has matured (slightly). He's still very a annoying,
frustrating, little child. I think because of the scene in the second
film where my dad and I are in Borgin and Burkes, which got cut out in the
final cut, but I think it explains a lot why Draco is acting like this to people who have popularity or people who have better things than him and such. I think during the film, he just opens up more and more about how and why he is like this. It's a good never-ending story why Draco is like how he is.
Alfonso Cuaron - Director
ON THEMES OF THE FILM
In a way, it was easy for us because what we tried to do was to detect the
theme of the film. That was about this kid finding his identity as a
teenager and the feeling that this kid is learning both that fears and the
power to fight reside within, so once we went into that line it was very
easy to discriminate which of the multiple elements that play in the book,
which ones would be relevant to this theme. We concentrated on one theme,
because what we wanted was a movie that was character-oriented with
special effects, rather than to be a special effect film with a bunch of
characters.
ON WORKING WITH DANIEL, RUPERT AND EMMA
That was the coolest thing. I was the luckiest guy because I got these three kids that have already done two Harry Potters. So in one hand, they knew it by heart, everything relating about their own characters and their universe around them. They knew all the technical aspects of doing a film with special effects. So
they knew about marks, they knew about little strings, they knew about
performing against a little tennis ball that later on is going to become a
CG character. They knew all about that and they were very good about that,
plus, they were thirteen. So together, to what we were talking about it is
very different to work with a kid when he is eleven to when he is thirteen.
There's a bigger awareness of what they're doing when they're thirteen. So
an eleven year old can be something fun and cool and that's make
believe. These kids are thirteen. After working, they've been very
lucky to work with some of the best actors alive in number one and number
two. So they wanted to start taking a little more seriously their craft
and they were willing then to explore emotional territories they hadn't
explored before. Again because of the nature of the material.
ON CHANGING THE WARDROBE AND HAIRSTYLES
Early on we said, "Okay, how would you wear your uniform?" First, they were all "Oh, tie does this." I said, "Yes, but if your parents were not around!"
Then they started doing weird things with their ties or taking their
shirts out, some of the kids tucking everything in trying to be very neat,
and I think that comes through in the film. The hairstyle was pretty much
dictated by the kids. I mean, obviously we knew that Harry Potter had
to have a little rebel hair. The hair is coming, you know, how the hair is,
is sticking out, so I said, "Okay, we're going to stick him out, do a little
longer here." But Dan was through the process of doing different tests with the hair and said, "Okay, yeah, it's more like that." We want it to be something organic - the hair, the uniform, and the attitude of the actors.
ON EMMA THOMPSON
Emma is so much fun. The thing with Emma is that she just keeps on trying.
I'm so pleased that whenever people see that scene - those two scenes - it's
so much fun, so eccentric, so coo-coo. There's a moment that is very funny and coo-coo that goes into a very scary mode, and that's great.
ON CAMERA MOVEMENTS
I wanted to try to tell the movie with a style that was as fluid as possible. One shot connecting with another one, rather than working with coverage. I wanted to really, as if the camera comes and says "Okay, give me your hand" and the camera just takes you through the whole ride from the first frame to the last frame.
David Heyman - Producer
ON THEMES OF THE FILM
One of the themes, or one of the ideas that Alfonso was keen to explore in
the film and which he discussed with me at the outset was this notion that
when you become a teenager, or as you grow up, the demons are no longer just
the monsters in the closet, the basilisk, the giant spiders and the likes,
but actually the demons begin to come from within and a lot of the darkness
comes from within. That was something he was keen to explore, so that
infuses some of the story. Also, the books grow up, the films grow up, just as the kids grow up, and I think you deal with slightly more adolescent issues in this film than you have in the previous two.
ON MICHAEL GAMBON
What Michael Gambon has brought to the film is something very special
because I think he has, on the one hand, made an homage to, he has
acknowledged Richard [Harris] in giving Dumbledore a little bit of an Irish accent.
But he again has made the character very much his own; he has made Dumbledore very much his own part. Dumbledore is who Dumbledore is by
the very nature of what Jo Rowling wrote - wise, eccentric, with a twinkle
in his eye, and I think Michael has all those qualities. Those were the
qualities we were looking for when we were searching for an actor to play
the part.
ON THE STORY
The Prisoner of Azkaban refers to a character by the name of Sirius Black who was twelve or thirteen years ago, and for many years before one of the closest friends of Harry's parents. That he, Harry's father, a character by the name of Professor Lupin, who's played by David Thewlis, and another character, Peter Pettigrew who's played by Tim Spall, were a group. Sirius Black has spent the last twelve years in prison because it is thought that he murdered or was responsible for the murder of Harry's parents and several others. When the film begins, the Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban and is on the run. We believe he is looking for Harry and is coming to find Harry Potter.
Chris Columbus - Producer
ON HARRY BEING REBELLIOUS
I think it's interesting to see Harry dealing with that sense of rebellion.
He's not going to take it anymore, he is not going to put up with the rules Uncle
Vernon has sort of set in stone in the house. And what I loved, there was a
line that was cut from the script that I loved, when Harry said to Uncle
Vernon, "I'm tired of living by other people's rules." And I thought that
was the heart of the film, I thought that, that's exactly what it means to
be a teenager. You know, it's like those great rock 'n' role songs from the sixties - "it's my life, you can't tell me what to do." That's what I loved about this book and what I loved about what Alfonso did with it - it's that sense of rebellion. When he walks out of the Dursley house at the beginning of the movie, that's pretty powerful. The fact that he's taken a stand and he's walking away
from this nonsense. You realize that you're in a different world now, these
aren't kids anymore.
ON DANIEL, RUPERT AND EMMA
When I saw this film, I was completely blown away by their performances
because there's such a maturity, there's such assurance, there's
confidence. There's a sense that we've done it before, we can now bring new
and interesting elements to it, there's a sense that they can get through
an entire scene without stopping. What's wonderful about watching this film
is that there are a lot of moments where we don't cut away from anything. We're actually staying with the actors, which is something we couldn't do in
the past. It's just a wonderful feeling and it's a sense of real pride to see that these kids have become such accomplished professional actors. You know, in terms of being a director, I don't know how you could be more proud - it's like seeing your own children up on screen.
ON HIS FAVOURITE SCENES
For me the two most amazing moments in the film are the attack of the
dementors on the train, at the beginning of the film which is, I think it's
just an amazing sequence, very frightening sequence and I think one of the
most moving and emotional sequences is Harry riding Buckbeak through the
grounds of Hogwarts. I just think that's a lyrical, poetic moment that just
is, is very moving and I think Alfonso did a wonderful job with those two
sequences. He's done a wonderful job with the whole movie but for me, those
are two of the most memorable sequences of the film.
Mark Radcliffe - Producer
ON DANIEL, RUPERT AND EMMA
The big difference between the third we've now watched them in is they are
truly actors, you know, and Alfonso was able to rehearse with them. You know before, we never really had the opportunity really to rehearse and they
pretty much came in and they would do you know what you would ask them to
do and they did a terrific job. I think again because each one of them
is a terrific actor, but the third film you really saw them grow up and they
were able to do rehearsal. They were very concerned why they were doing
certain things and what the reaction would be. They were able to give
you a variety of performances, which I thought the range, and especially
Dan's range I thought was phenomenal.
ON ALFONSO CUARON
It really took, I have to say, Alfonso's eye to really come in and
tie this up together. I would be amazed even as we're starting final
visual effects and we're looking at the Whomping Willow. He is as
concerned about the highlight on the rock which is next to the Whomping
Willow as he is with does it match also the light coming in from
the hillside behind the trees, which you barely really even see. I mean he
is, "Are the shadows really projected, are we getting strength of the shadows?" You sat and you listened to this, but when you see everything composited together it is amazing the impact that it has, and the strength of the shot. I mean, the visuals are stunning. He has really done a great job.
News: Currently, with the purchase of an Australian newspaper, you have the option of buying a special Harry Potter DVD that contains new interviews with the cast and crew of Prisoner of Azkaban. VTM reader *Ginny* bought the DVD and kindly transcribed the interviews for us. The full interviews can be read here.
Source: *Ginny*
-11/27/04
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