Miranda Richardson talks GOF

Exclusive: Creating Rita - Miranda Richardson talks Harry Potter

From film focus

We caught up with the wonderfully funny and brilliantly talented Miranda Richardson last night at the premiere of The League Of Gentleman's Apocalypse, full report on that on its way, and just insisted on being filled-in on all the Potter gossip.

Richardson plays Rita Skeeter, the annoying and intrusive journalist for The Daily Prophet, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, due out in November, "I enjoyed the books enormously," she told FilmFocus, "but Rita reads rather differently than how I played her. She reads more, to me, like Dame Edna. And there's no way I'm going to do Dame Edna. So it's a different twist on the character."

Potter fans will no-doubt be familiar with the shenanigans of Ms. Skeeter, she hounds Harry for much of Goblet of Fire and prints vicious rumours about him at every opportunity.

Fortunately, there were no Skeeter-esque journalists in our press line tonight...

Richardson told us that the biggest thrill of the Harry Potter experience was working with her young co-stars, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. "They're cool," she told us, "they're very grounded. They put me to shame, really, they're much more grown up than me. They're not fazed by all the trappings of stardom and, I think, very keen to be seen as true professionals. They want to carry on in the profession and do other big work."

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is released in the UK on November 18th, and we can't get ourselves away from all the stars of the film turning out to let us know how awesome it's going to be. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. Roll on November, we say