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

felt that, “Well, if he doesn’t turn out to be a complete loss, we’ll let him do two.” I said to my cinematographer and production designer, “We need to push this film visually beyond anything that I’ve ever done.” I said, “It has to be visually stunning, more than anything, more important than anything.” Then I told the actors, “Your performances have to be incredibly real, naturalistic.” My feeling, again, with Hogwarts and the whole world, it would have been easy to take this into some fantastical place that exists only in the imagination, but I felt when I read the books that Jo Rowling spoke to every eleven-year-old and said, “You know, you could potentially get a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” That gave these kids some hope in their lives and I thought, “That’s what I want the film to be like,” that you could actually, potentially get this letter. You want to make them believe in magic in a weird way, and I know that sounds corny, but it really is. You want kids to believe in the magic of it all.
    QUESTION: Did these kids have any idea of what they were in store for in terms of the media’s response to them?
    COLUMBUS: Well, my initial feeling was that they shouldn’t go to America and do things like Jay Leno or David Letterman; that they should remain slightly obscure. The good news is that they’ll get to come back to England [to shoot the sequel] and get away from the publicity.
    QUESTION: And you think Daniel Radcliffe will be able to handle the pressure?
    COLUMBUS: In his case he’s surrounded by two very strong, loving parents, and I think that they’ll protect him.
    QUESTION: In essence, do you think that’s the difference between him and Macaulay Culkin?
    COLUMBUS: Well, you know, I’ve had ten years away from that and I’ve learned from that experience. I learned as a director, again, like I said, you have to cast the parents; you have to see what kind of environment this kid lives in. You also have to realize that Dan really seems to love doing his work. I think that’s one of the things that you look for as well — kids who are interested in the job, interested in being there and also, just that the parental relationship is a good one and a healthy one.
    QUESTION: Are you saying that Macaulay didn’t want to do the
Home Alone
films?
    COLUMBUS: I don’t know. I think that he was more interested, to be honest with you, in being a little kid and Dan has found a way to balance working and being a little kid, which I think is incredibly healthy.
    QUESTION: Did you factor that in when you were holding auditions?
    COLUMBUS: Yes, it was extremely important, and all of these kids were very real and very honest, and they hadn’t done a lot of . . . well, Dan had done
David Copperfield
, obviously and about two seconds in
The Tailor of Panama
, but for the most part, most of the kids had never even been on a film set before. So, for me, that was important in terms of getting their performances to be real, because they don’t come in with any sort of stage mothers or stage parents telling them how they should act. So, it’s all very real — and psychologically, that’s important; no stage mothers, no stage fathers. These kids come in and they realize that they’re doing a job. British actors, Ihave found, and particularly even with the stars like Richard Harris and Maggie Smith, it’s not about how big your trailer is, or, “Do I have a trainer, do I have a cook?” and all that star stuff that is so upsetting to me when I work in Hollywood sometimes.
    QUESTION: How did you deal with making the movie as good as the book, as well as controlling the running time?
    COLUMBUS: To me, it’s a companion piece to the book. My goal was to involve Jo Rowling as a collaborator. People would say, “Well, isn’t that going to interrupt your vision and isn’t that going to get in the way of what you want this film to look like?” I thought, “If I were