Read Online The Making of the Potterverse by Edward Gross - Free Book Online Page A

Hagrid’s problem is that when he starts talking, he doesn’t know when to stop. He actually gives away the three major plotlines in here. So, that has to be an established part of his character, and otherwise, it just sounds like he’s giving away plotlines, and so, he had to sound very natural, and that sort of became a bit of a catchphrase in the shooting because he does it about three times, and one of the things that I like about him is that he’s not completely fearless. I think the fact that he calls that dog Fluffy is just hilarious.
    QUESTION: Do you think this movie will be judged on two different standards?
    COLTRANE: Oh absolutely, and children, as you know, are terrible sticklers for detail. They will know every single thing, and that’s more scary for Chris [Columbus] than for anyone else.
    QUESTION: Did you look like the Hagrid you imagined when you read the book?
    COLTRANE: Yes, absolutely, and the makeup girls did a great job, they really did. That outfit weighed about sixty-five pounds.
    QUESTION: Was it difficult to establish chemistry with the kids you were acting with?
    COLTRANE: Not at all with these kids. I have to say the reason that actors don’t like working with kids is because they don’t have a very good emotional memory. If you say to them, “Imagine yourself at so and so, imagine when you were last really, really angry,” and they have to be really, really angry fourteen times, and I mean, it’s bad enough when you’re an adult. So, what you do is that you always have fifteen takes with everything? It’s the same with bloody animals — little Fluffy will only hit the mark once in forty takes. Then it’sthree in the morning and you want to go home, and so, they print the take that Fluffy hit the spot on, and you perhaps weren’t very good in that take, and that’s what that’s about. But the kids were great. I have to say, as much as it goes against the grain to be nice about the director, Columbus is wonderful with children. Well, you can tell from seeing it. He really knows how to get the best out of them, because they were doing a lot of really subtle stuff, weren’t they? Normally, kids in movies are either being cute or they’re just being ghastly, aren’t they? He managed to get all sorts of subtleties. You know, the way their friendships develop, and the way [Hermione] is sort of unlikable to start with, and then, you start to think, “Oh well, she’s really alright,” just like in the book. So, they were fine and they’re proper children.
    QUESTION: Did you get the sense from talking to J.K. Rowling that faithfulness to the book was important?
    COLTRANE: Oh, absolutely. She got offered millions of pounds and you wouldn’t believe the list of directors that wanted to do this who were turned down.

CHRIS COLUMBUS
    (Director —
Sorcerer’s Stone
and
Chamber of Secrets
)
    QUESTION: Does criticism from the press affect you at all?
    COLUMBUS: Actually, no, because I think that the movie speaks for itself. I initially didn’t want to do a film like this because of the visual effects. I wasn’t interested in working with the visual effects. But now, visual effects are at such a point where it’s actually fun to work with them. My feeling has always been that you shouldn’t let theeffects overtake the story. I’ve seen it happen in so many films, where it’s all about the effects, but our goal in
Harry
was to make it just like the book, about the characters. The effects are icing on the cake.
    QUESTION: At what point did they ask you to do the second film?
    COLUMBUS: It just seemed like a smooth transition, and I do remember in the initial conversation with Warner Brothers, they did say, “Could you do two back to back?” and I said, “I think so, as long as I get the editing worked out with the preproduction of the first” — we were editing while we were shooting, and so, I felt that I could do it. So, it was already in my mind anyway. I think they probably