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Harry Potter bewitches Guantanamo Bay prisoners
Reuters Washington Aug 10: Harry Potter has bewitched detainees at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, where tales of the young wizard and mysteries by Agatha Christie top the list of most popular books.

"Harry Potter is a popular title among some of the detainee population," said the prison librarian yesterday, a civilian contractor identified only as 'Lorie' who works at the prison camp for foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base in Cuba.

Lorie said the popularity of the best-selling Harry Potter books, which recount the adventures of a boy wizard as he triumphs over the powers of evil, was matched only by the prisoners' passion for Agatha Christie, some of whose murder mysteries are set in the West Asia.

The Guantanamo Bay prison — which has come under fierce attack by human rights groups for its treatment and indefinite detention of prisoners — holds about 510 suspects from 40 countries. Most are from Afghanistan and Arab states.

But even this remote prison has not escaped the world-wide frenzy over the escapades of Harry Potter and his friends at the Hogwarts school of wizardry and witchcraft. The sixth book in the series by author J K Rowling, which went on sale last month, is the fastest-selling book of all time.

"We have Harry Potter in four languages, English, French, Farsi and Russian. We have it on order in Arabic. We do not have books 5 and 6 in the series, at this time. We have had several detainees read the series," Lorie said in a written response to questions from Reuters.

"One prisoner has requested the movies," she said.

News of the series' popularity was first reported by The Washington Times on Monday.

Asked what other books were among the prisoners' favourites, Lorie said, "We have 12 different Agatha Christie titles in Arabic that are very popular. Also 1001 Arabian Nights."

Overall, the library contains 1,200 books, 164 magazines and 40 videos.

The prisoners do not need library privileges to read the Islamic holy book, the Koran, which is a "basic issue item" that each prisoner keeps in his cell, she said.

The United States opened the Guantanamo prison in January 2002. A total of 242 detainees have been transferred out of the prison to other countries either to be freed or for continued detention, while approximately 510 remain at Guantanamo, according to the Pentagon. Many have been held for more than three years and only four have been charged.

Human rights groups have assailed the US for the indefinite detentions, and former Guantanamo prisoners have complained they were tortured, a charge the military denies.

Some critics have urged the Bush administration to shut the camp down, saying its treatment of prisoners encourages hatred toward the West and bolsters support for militant violence.

Some new friends for Harry Potter
By Beth Hinchliffe/ Special To The Townsman
Thursday, August 11, 2005

Thanks to the Committee to Save the Branch Libraries, six lucky children won the chance to check out brand-new copies of the wildly popular "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" immediately, instead of having to wait (there are more than 1200 requests for it through the library system).

The Committee donated the copies, three for the Hills Branch and three for the Fells Branch, and the winning children's names were drawn from a cauldron during last Tuesday's Young Scientists' Program at the Hills Branch Library.

"We thought this was a great way to remind people that two of the branches' unique strengths are serving children, and providing best-sellers for their patrons," said Committee Chairman Chris Cannon, on presenting the books to Branch Services Supervisor Josh Olshin (who dressed up in Harry Potter spectacles for the big event).

From the nearly 70 children who attended the program (another will be held next Tuesday at 7 p.m., featuring veterinarian Dr. Jeff Giles, along with his Cockatoo and French Bulldog), the six winners were: David Moy, Erick Prakken, Matthew Mickle, Brennan Cody, Elisa Moy and Victor de Fontnouvelle.

While the Committee to Save the Branch Libraries was successful in raising enough money to keep the branches open for another year, the members continue to work hard to come up with ideas to keep the branches open long-term. For information or to volunteer, check the Web site: www.savethebranches.org or contact ccannon@comcast.net. In addition, the Committee urgently needs to raise the final $3,000 of its $66,000 pledge by Labor Day. Donations (payable to Wellesley Free Library Branches) may be sent to: Treasurer, 15 Larch Road, 02481.

Meet Harry Potter's voice and those of 133 others


By Neely Tucker
The Washington Post


WASHINGTON - The best-loved storyteller in America, a rail-thin man, is sitting in the back of a Lincoln Town Car Executive Series, tooling along the empty August streets of the nation's capital.

Jim Dale is 69, he's a Brit and he's a sensation. Again. A phenomenon. Again. And, to the public, as invisible as this sleekly polished vehicle purring through an afternoon thunderstorm.

He's the narrator, and portrays more than 100 voices in the audiobooks of author J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series. More than 5 million copies sold. Parents and kids have snapped up 350,000 audiobooks of the sixth installment, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," in four weeks - at a list price of $75 for the 17-CD set. This week he had six recordings in the Top 13 audiobooks on Amazon.

He is to audiobooks what Secretariat was to the Belmont - 31 lengths out front, blazing away into history, the rest of the field scarcely in the homestretch.

He is talking in the car, black-and-gray hair a shade over the collar, a trace of the rock singer he was 40 years ago. He's good-natured about his secondary role in the Potter phenomenon.

"I don't think for a minute that me going around the country doing readings is going to possibly promote the book more than the children already are," he said. "I mean, it's the book, isn't it? Children don't come to hear Jim Dale. They come to hear Harry Potter."

Perhaps, yes. But fame, so very different from talent, has always flirted with him this way. He started out a comical lad in the dreary Midlands of England. Song, dance, bit of a joke, got to do it all if you're going to be onstage, luvvie.

And here he is, six decades on, invisible even on Park Avenue in Manhattan, where he lives. At NPR's studios in Washington, his face is so little known that when a producer comes into the station's greenroom, he hesitates.

"Jim Dale?" he says, scanning the room, eyebrows raised.

Of course, Dale is only a visitor to the land of Potter.

"I record the books in 14 days, do a few readings and go back to my life," he said. "I wouldn't call it part of my day-to-day doings."

His day-to-day is acting, comedy, theater.

At 22, he was a British rock star. He was the first pop artist for a manager named George Martin, who would do something with a group called the Beatles. Dale had a hit called "Be My Girl."

He hosted a midday TV gig in the southern part of the country, worked as a BBC disc jockey. In 1966, he wrote the lyrics for "Georgy Girl," a hit for the Seekers.

Dale went into the National Theatre in 1970, performing Shakespeare. He crossed over to New York theater, lording over Broadway in 1979 and 1980 in the title role of "Barnum." He won the Tony. The New York Times review: "Is there anything Jim Dale can't do?"

He won more New York theater awards in 1995 for his role in "Travels With My Aunt," an adaptation of the Graham Greene book. Dale played both the aunt and the nephew.

And then it dawned on somebody that maybe this guy could handle an audiobook.

"Jim is an actor's actor; he becomes what the script calls for him to be," said Joel Silberman, a theater director, writer and frequent musical collaborator of Dale's. Silberman is casting Dale in "A Woman of Will," which opens off-Broadway in October, as the voice of William Shakespeare.

There are now so many voices contained in a single "Harry Potter" book that engineers at Random House have created a compact disc with audio files of each voice so Dale can remind himself when a character emerges after, say, a two-book absence. Having portrayed 134 voices in one book, Dale holds the title in the Guinness Book of World Records.

He personifies each voice from people in his life, say an aunt, or a blowhard he overheard in a bar. He then mixes in the multitude of accents and dialects available to the British ear: Scots, Welsh, Cockney, Irish, south London. Then he adds his idea of how Rowling describes them. The late actor John Houseman's lordly diction was the model for Professor Dumbledore, for example, but the art form is not mimicry.

Instead, creating a world of magic, curses and spells at a British school for wizards and witches while actually sitting in a cramped recording booth in Manhattan is a craft.

"Sometimes, you're able to create a very distinct voice ... from just the pace of their speech," Dale said. "Did you know. That Michael Caine. Can only speak. In three words. At one time."

Writers debate Harry Potter at WorldCon by Petra Mitchell, editor of The Akashic Record Interaction, this year's World Science Fiction Convention, staged a debate on the merits of Harry Potter as one of its program items. The debate occurred at 11am on Saturday, August 6th, between the following participants: Arguing the case for: Jane Yolen, author of hundreds of children's books, and a guest of honor at this convention; and Sharyn November, an editor for Penguin Arguing against: Elizabeth Wein, YA author; and Julie Bertagna, Scottish children's author, and writer of a recent review (not availabled online) of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Moderator: Graham Sleight, reviewer, essayist, and so forth The audience: A few hundred science fiction and fantasy fans, a small percentage of the total attendance at the convention, but a terrific turnout considering there were at least a dozen other things going on at the same time. Unfortunately, instead of being phrased in the form of a question, the title of the debate as listed in the program book as "Harry Potter Has Set Children's Fantasy Back 50 Years", leading to an expectation that it would be a Harry Potter-bashing session, and an audience heavily skewed toward Potter-haters. For those looking for a juicy report about authors tearing into each other, I'll point out now that the debate was completely civil, and, as you'll see below, the For and Against camps actually agreed on a lot. Graham Sleight
Jane Yolen, Sharyn November, Graham Sleight, Elizabeth Wein, and Julie Bertagna To start, the moderator asked Jane Yolen what her objection to Harry Potter is. She answered, "Adverbs!" and went on to complain that Rowling's prose is terrible. She jokingly commented that she plans to write an entire book composed of adverbs. She's tired of seeing people saying, "Well, the books aren't well written, but..." She'd like to see the level of attention Rowling gets given to an author who does, in her opinion, write lovely prose, like Diana Wynne-Jones or Philip Pullman. She also said that the Potter books are very derivative, that many people have written essentially the same story, including herself eight years ago. (This would be her book Wizard's Hall.) The moderator asked if perhaps being derivative is the reason the books are so popular. Yolen said yes, and also noted that many, many books are derivative, but that lots of them are better than Harry Potter. Sharyn November said that her objection was that the Harry Potter phenomenon is not about the books anymore, but a social thing about being part of a huge release, like a Star Wars movie. She said she's happy that it's helped raise the profile of other children's authors, but she feels that the Potter books are like Roald Dahl crossed with Diana Wynne-Jones and half as good as either. Julie Bertagna began her remarks by talking about the reviewing experience. She whisked away in a van to an undisclosed location and had to read Half-Blood Prince in one gulp. She feels this leads to the books getting worse reviews than they would with the usual review procedure. Bertagna feels that a big reason children like Harry Potter is that Rowling writes in a voice that they respond well to. As for derivativeness, everything is derivative of something. The reason she thinks adults were drawn into the series is the Cinderella story of a single mother on welfare writing a book that made her rich and singlehandedly rescued the Bloomsbury children's department, which was on the verge of shutting down. Yolen said that she is on a couple of e-mailing lists for academics studying children's literature. She's upset that every time a new Potter book comes out, these lists are flooded with messages from people who would normally take a critical stance going gaga over it. She just reads the spoilers and deletes everything else. She asked if anyone in the audience had not yet read the sixth book, and about half those present raised their hands. She offered to tell everyone who dies, but at the reaction from the audience said she would just tell anyone who came up and asked her after the debate. She brandished an article from The Independent titled, "Can no one criticise JK Rowling?". (The story is not available online. It's an opinion piece about Terry Pratchett's recent remarks, and how anyone who says anything negative is automatically charged with being jealous of Rowling since they aren't as rich as her, ergo, no one can criticize her. I have to say that in the forums I checked, a slight majority of comments on Pratchett's remarks came from people who had figured out he was upset at the journalist, not Rowling. As fan reactions to the object of their admiration being allegedly attacked go, it was really pretty mild.) She stated that bad writing drives out good writing. November asked in exasperation, "Who cares if Harry Potter dies?" Look at an adult bestseller list, she said, and the common denominator is that the books are no good, but then she named some exceptions. She said a similar thing is happening with children's bestseller lists, which have been traditionally been topped by good books, although Goosebumps is an exception. But she added that it's great that all of Diana Wynne-Jones's books are back in print, which is probably due to the influence of Harry Potter. Bertagna picked that up and emphasized that Rowling's success has transformed children's fantasy from a backwater to something that authors can actually make a living at. November agreed it has had a huge positive influence on the ability of the genre to sell. She said that, like adult books, children's books tend to be divided between Literature and what everyone actually reads. Yolen said that this brings in unrealistic expectations about how well a book can do. Philip Pullman and Lemony Snicket have also contributed to this. Also Christopher Paolini, who sent his manuscript of Eragon to her. She thought it was pretty good work, for a 15-year-old. She noted that a 15-year-old who gets his manuscript printed up by parents who are printers and takes it around to schools until he generates enough interest to be signed by a major publisher makes a compelling backstory too. Bertagna said that now publishers' marketing departments want a hook like this for every book. November asked how many literary prodigies ever have successful careers as adults, and answered that almost none do. She's curious whether Rowling will ever write anything after Harry Potter. She said that she would never, ever, publish a manuscript written by a 15-year-old. She's also tired of people sending in manuscripts which are Harry Potter clones. She doesn't want to buy a Harry Potter clone. She wants to buy the next big thing. Yolen allowed as how, thanks to the recent big successes but in particular because of the Lemony Snicket books, publishers are rediscovering the art of making books into beautiful objects. November said that every child needs to read, and that anything that gets them reading is a good thing, but she doesn't like "concept books" like the Snicket or Potter series, where the whole series is planned in advance to a gimmick like there being exactly 13 books, or one book for each school year. The moderator took a question from the audience, which actually was a statement that the audience member thought Philosopher's Stone had captured the imagination of children. Yolen said that Rowling can tell a story well, just that it's not an original one. Yolen was a sub-editor on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and thinks Honeydukes is working from the same list of sweets. So, for that matter, was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There seems to be a collective British memory of a certain group of candies. Bertagna said that this and other common features in British children's fantasy seem to be drawn from a world set in the 1950s. "Aha", said the moderator, "so that's how Harry Potter has set children's fantasy back 50 years!" Laughter from all sides. Bertagna said she thinks part of the appeal to adults is that the books talk to an adult's feeling of being childlike, not in control of their world. The moderator commented that Harry Potter lives in an essentially elitist world. The Muggle-lovers are just window-dressing because the books are all about the special people. Yolen said that no one remembers the bestsellers of 50 years ago now, and asked if anyone would remember Harry Potter in 50 years. She said she objected that all the adults in the books were stupid, especially Dumbledore, for letting a school stay open when there was a crazed maniac running around trying to kill the kids. (I think she meant Sirius, since she's only read the first three books, but the moderator thought she meant Voldemort.) The moderator noted that Dumbledore is a powerful wizard, and the only one that Voldemort is afraid of. Yolen said it didn't matter, he was still stupid for keeping the school open, and the wizard government is stupid for not forcing the school to shut down. Another question from the audience: This person had read one-third of Philosopher's Stone before throwing it away, and wondered if throwing the kind of money that gets spent on the Harry Potter publicity budget at some other, better, writer would make them as popular. Wein responded, "Try it!" She then said that the first book (she read the UK edition) had been poorly edited-- misspellings of common words and suchlike. Bertagna said she feels the editing has gotten worse over the course of the series (again, the UK edition). Yolen said Scholastic had laid off 400 people because the fourth or fifth book had been two and a half years late. At this point I raised my hand and waved frantically. When the moderator called on me, I said there had been no deadline for the fifth book because Rowling had half killed herself to get Goblet of Fire done in a year. Yolen said okay, but Scholastic had counted on the fifth book following the fourth in the next year, and, because that revenue hadn't shown up, had laid off 400 people, including her editor there. Bertagna said that she thinks the plot is diluted by the length of the series, and a 4-book series would have been a lot better. Yolen brought up the Oz books, which also got lots of children reading, and which she loved as a child. Now, coming back to them to read them to her 8-year-old granddaughter, she thinks they're badly written, but her granddaughter can't wait for the next chapter. Wein said that she thought she would have absolutely adored the Harry Potter series if she had encountered it at the age of 11.

By this time the gofers from Programming were holding up the "STOP" sign to indicate time had run out, so the debate concluded there.

HARRY POTTER STRUGGLES TO IMPRESS GIRLS

DANIEL RADCLIFFE

< = =text/> document.write(''); < = src="http://ads.contactmusic.com/advertpro/servlet/view/banner//zone?zid=25&pid=1&random=37889831" =text/> < src="http://ads.contactmusic.com/advertpro/servlet/view/banner//zone?zid=25&pid=1" height="250" width="300" ="0" ="0" border="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"> </> HARRY POTTER star DANIEL RADCLIFFE is still struggling to translate his fame into success with the opposite sex, because girls are still unimpressed by his attempts to start conversations. The 16-year-old actor has learned that it is the person underneath the big screen exterior that really matters, and Radcliffe refuses to give up on his quest to secure himself a girlfriend until he is successful. He says, "I'm much more confident (than Potter) but I'm just as rubbish. "It's weird. I like to think that I'm not, but I may be wrong. Ask the girls. I don't have a girlfriend, but I try. "I think of the perfect lines afterwards. I find that lines - no one should use lines with girls - don't work. "'Hey, do you come here often?' What is that? 'Hey, is this seat empty?', 'Yes, and this one will be, too, if you don't leave me alone.' "So I don't understand girls but I'm learning slowly."

Giving voices to Potter series

By Merrill Balassone

Los Angeles Times


LOS ANGELES – With a script in his hand, Jim Dale scrunches his face in a sneer and lets out a gurgling, brusque voice that transforms the 69-year-old British actor into the large, beefy, purple-faced Aunt Marge, a minor character in the "Harry Potter" series.

He is reading from one of his favorite passages in the third book of the series to eager fans on a Tuesday evening at Storyopolis in the Studio City section of Los Angeles. The crowd sits rapt as Harry unleashes his magic on the drunk and villainous Aunt Marge, inflating her like a balloon and making her fingers fat as salamis.

Dale has given voice to more than 200 characters in the audio versions of the six "Harry Potter" books published so far (author J.K. Rowling has said a seventh title will end the series). The first five audio books in the series smashed previous sales records with more than 4 million copies sold in North America.

For the initial run of the most recent title, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," 635,000 audio versions were printed, making it the largest first run in the history of audio books, says Amanda D'Acierno, a spokeswoman at Random House Audio.

Although the "Harry Potter" audio books Dale worked on – for which he's garnered much praise – have become blockbusters, his schedule is far from glamorous. Because of tight security restrictions on the book, he received only 100 pages of the manuscript at a time. He color-coded the characters and had to devise voices for the new ones practically overnight, keeping track of them on a tape recorder.

After he got in the studio, Dale would spend nearly seven hours in a cramped sound booth – unless his voice gave out sooner – recording almost 20 pages per hour. Then he would hand back the recorded portion of the manuscript and get another 100 pages, often with more new characters.

The recording of the most recent book took two weeks.

No cameras were allowed to film him as he worked, for fear that parts of the book would be leaked before its release date.

"I was the only one in America with the book (in manuscript form)," Dale says. "Released into the wrong hands, it could have ended up on the Internet and losing a lot of people a lot of money."

More than 100 people, many of them adults, packed the Storyopolis bookstore, cheering and applauding for their favorite characters and scenes.

With his glasses pushed down his nose and his brow furrowed, Dale read herbology lessons in Professor Sprout's whiny voice and spoke in gruff, bellowing tones as Hagrid tended to his pet insects.

Dale is not often recognized in public, but as he ordered food at a McDonald's recently, a couple of kids recognized his voice. Dale finished placing his order as Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

He says he is inspired by other actors, using the late John Houseman's precise and deliberate speech to create Dumbledore's voice. But he also finds muses in everyday situations.

As he pushed into a crowded elevator one day, Dale heard a squeaky voice come from below.

"Excuse me, sir, could you take your bum out of my face?"

Dale turned around to encounter a very short man, and the voice of Dobby the house elf was born.

With a career in entertainment spanning more than 53 years, Dale has excelled on stage and as a song writer.

He was nominated for an Academy Award for the lyrics to the title song for the film "Georgy Girl" in 1966 and he won a Tony for his lead role in "Barnum" in 1980. Working with Beatles record producer George Martin, Dale also had a brief pop singing career.

Still, Dale believes his "Harry Potter" recordings will become his strongest legacy. He expresses pride for his place in the Guinness World Book of Records for creating and recording 134 voices in one audiobook, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

'Meet J.K. Rowling'
Part 3: The story so far: Joanne got the idea for the first Harry Potter book while riding on a train to London.

By Gloria D. Miklowitz, Special to The Times


JOANNE ROWLING used every spare minute to fill in details of what was to become "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in America. Then a terrible thing happened. Her mother died suddenly of multiple sclerosis, a disease of the nervous system. Rowling told People magazine that writing about Harry was the only thing that got her through that nightmare.

Unhappy with her life, she quit her job and went to Oporto, Portugal, to teach English. She loved it there and had mornings free to write. Then she fell in love with a journalist for a TV station and married him. They had a daughter, Jessica, in 1993, but the marriage ended. Joanne said she felt as if she needed to achieve something. She left Portugal to join her sister Di in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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"I had a tiny baby, no job, and I was in a strange place," she told People magazine. She didn't want to apply for welfare. After all, she was a college graduate and had job skills. But how else could she finish the Harry Potter book and pay for rent and food? She applied.

One dreary day, while visiting Di, Joanne told her a little about the book she was writing. Di read it and loved it. Joanne was determined to finish the book in a year. Every day, except in bad weather, she pushed Jessica in the stroller until the baby fell asleep. Then she went to a cafe, sat at a table with a cup of coffee and wrote. Unable to afford a used typewriter then, she wrote by hand on scraps of paper.

Day by day the story grew. Harry, Hermione and Ron became as alive to her as real people. She laughed at names she made up, such as Professor Dumbledore and Hagrid and at describing how Quidditch is played. A year later the book was finished. It was almost twice the length of most children's novels. She bought a used typewriter, and after typing out the story she sent a copy to two agents she hoped would be willing to represent her book to publishers.

Joanne must have felt strange to wake each day without a plan to write about Harry, but now she could get a job and get off welfare. As days passed without word about her manuscript, she worried.



Thursday: Will an agent find Harry Potter good enough to try to sell?

Bible School To Use Harry Potter Theme

POSTED: 10:41 am EDT August 17, 2005

CARLISLE, Pa. -- A church in Carlisle has decided to use J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter tales in its Bible school. Saint John's Episcopal Church has doubled vacation Bible school enrollment since doing so.

This summer the theme is "Wizards and Wonders: The Journey with Harry Potter," as preschoolers take flying lessons on miniature broomsticks at a makeshift Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. Older students play a game of Quidditch, and more than 100 youngsters get Bible verse in their daily owl mail.

A minister said the Bible and the Harry Potter stories have what she calls "a slew of parallel lessons."

More fans tell about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince experiences
08/17/2005
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Enchanted reading
I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Monday, July 18. I was number 117 to get the book. I was at Barnes and Noble that night with my friends Keira and Kendra. I didn't dress up for the party.
I had no nap [but] skipped no meals [while reading the book]. I think number six, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the best.
For school I'm doing that one for my book report. Harry is still "the Chosen One" and the magic enchants my reading.
Katherine Dautrich, 9
New Eagle Elementary School, grade 4


Patience
I was on my way home to Pittsburgh from Stone Harbor, N.J. and we were going to spend the night at the Rockvale Outlets. I was close to finishing another book in the car when we stopped to get the next mysterious Harry Potter novel at the Valley Forge Barnes and Noble at 10:35 a.m.
I leaped out of the car and waltzed into the store and I stopped dead in my tracks! The line from the counter ran nearly around the store!
My smart parents [were able to get] our pre-ordered book [by going to] to the music section where we were in and out in five minutes!
But I knew I had to finish my other book and I did so. The funny part is, I still finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince the next day!
Right after I finished the new Harry Potter novel I decided to re-read the fourth book again.
Erin Gorse,11
Shady Side Academy Middle School, Pittsburgh, grade 6

VOLDEMORT SKETCHES SOLD FIENNES ON HARRY POTTER ROLE



British actor RALPH FIENNES immediately accepted the role of LORD VOLDEMORT in the third HARRY POTTER movie when he saw sketches of the costume he'd wear if he took the part.

The RED DRAGON star, who had criticised the past two installments in the hugely popular series, is extremely excited about his role in HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE - and he admits that simple drawings persuaded him to accept the job.

He says, "I wrestled with it a bit because I didn't know the world of Harry Potter. Then after thinking about it I just thought it was a full-on, meaty villain, baddy.

"I've done realistic villains but something in that fantastical realm, children's realm, the dark Lord; I hadn't really done that before.

"When I saw some pictures that they drew for the look (of the character) that's when I took the bait. I thought it looked really cool. I think I'm doing the next one where I have a big fight with DUMBLEDORE."