| Filmmakers Mike Newell and David Heyman on how the new Harry Potter mixes in the songs with the scary
Has Harry changed?
Mike Newell (director): He's older; he's more conscious. So he knows what's happening to him. Voldemort says in the graveyard, 'Come out here. What do you want? Do you want to take it in the back or do you want to take it in the front? But you're going to get it whichever way.' And what Harry says is, 'All right, I'll show you.' And he comes out ready for a fight. He knows it's a fight to the death. He knows that and he has the moral courage to do it.
David Heyman (producer): When we spoke to Jo (J K Rowling) the first time, it was a very important theme for her, and I think it's a theme that will continue, which is to stand up and be counted. Even if you might not win, you have to stand up for what you believe in. Mike, what was the challenge using great English actors as background in Harry's story?
Mike: All these people are established — Maggie (Smith)'s established; Alan (Rickman)'s established; Mike Gambon; Robbie Coltrane, and so there's no more exploration for the audience to do of those characters. Indeed they mustn't change, in a way. And so what you have to do is to find a lapidary way of using these tiny little bits, which will show you parts of these characters that you've never seen before. You've never seen Hagrid in love before. Do you think that this movie is not only for kids anymore?
Mike: It isn't a kid movie for me. It's an adventure story, and it's a huge entertainment. For me, it had all the variety that a Bollywood movie has. It's a huge, broad-based entertainment.
David: For me, the books are not children's books. I think that's a misconception. I think they appeal to people of all ages. Each of the books is getting more mature than the one that precedes it because it's also dealing with a different age at a different year in Harry's life. | Director Mike Newell with his
actors Alan Rickman, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | Mike, how does this project rank personally in your career?
Mike: I always hate what I make. This sounds like a joke, but it isn't. I can't stand myself sometimes. He (David) has seen me in rushes, where I simply can't bear the ordinariness of what I do. This time — and it may be a very bad sign, I don't know — but this time, I don't hate it. This time, I think it's what I tried to do. And so it pleases me very much. How are the actors dealing with growing up onscreen in front of the whole world?
Mike: My worst fear was that they would have realized that these films were stories in which they absolutely were the stars. Miraculously, mostly because of the way they are handled by the production and also because they've got very good parents, they haven't.
David: The three kids want to learn. They want to get better at what they do. They are enthusiastic still. And they have a lot of fun doing it. How did Daniel handle the underwater sequences?
Mike: He's a very brave boy. He's a rotten swimmer, or he was when this began. But there wasn't any way around it. He had to swim; he had to spend huge amounts of time underwater in the tank.
David: Dan was not a physical boy. He wanted to be more physical, and actually, we encouraged that. We put him together with our stunt team, and he is now a jock of sorts. I mean, his body has changed. He is really much more physical than he ever was. At lunch break, for example, several times a week, he'll go down to the gym and work out. It's not something we're actually asking him to do. He just loves to do it. At times he likes to do his own stunts. He's very brave, as Mike said. |
| He who must not be named
Ralph Fiennes on playing 'Mr Evil' — Lord Voldemort "All I knew was that my character, Voldemort, is the big, big Mr Evil who's more evil than anyone's ever been evil before. To be honest, I didn't like the first two films, they didn't do anything for me. But I thought, 'Aw, f**k it. It's so far from everything else I've done. It's two days work for a big f**k-off Mr Evil scene." On his key fight scene with Daniel Radcliffe
"The poor guy had to be sort of in the grip of a statue of death holding him…while I pranced about telling him how evil I was and the genius I was, threatening him. And he had to go, 'Aagh, aagh, aagh,' and I had to go [in an evil laugh], 'Ha-ha-ha-ha.' He was great." On whether he read The Goblet of Fire after landing the part of Voldemort
"I did, yeah, but I was only interested in my scene and I had to go through thousands and thousands of other scenes which I did, dutifully, get through. I got my scene and I read it many, many, many, many, many times and that was my research." | |
| 'Dan is so down-to-earth'
Katie Leung, who is Harry's crush Cho Chang, says the two only flirt glances
Cho Chang is quite a complicated girl. How would you describe her?
Yeah, definitely. She has a complicated time. She's Harry's crush, but she's also got a boyfriend in the film so nothing can happen between her and Harry. Basically all that's involved between Harry and Cho is just teasing and a lot of flirting and looking. She's not an unfaithful person in character; she wouldn't cheat on her boyfriend or anything. How did you work with Daniel on it?
We had a few scenes but most of the scenes that we did he was always walking by or gazing at me from afar, so we never really got to talk to each other until before the Yule Ball scene when he asks me to go. That was like the big scene between me and him. We had fun together. It was great filming with Dan because he's so down-to-earth. What sort of stuff did you get up to outside of shooting?
Well, because we were all young, we had to go into tutoring and had to study when we weren't filming. But when we weren't studying, holidays and stuff like that. We had a recreation room. Ping pong?
Yeah, ping pong! And a snooker table and telly and board games and everything. We just had great fun in there. We played Articulate and we played Connect Four. We're all big babies. | |
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