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July 2009
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE |Press Conference Interviews with Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) and Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy)

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE
Press Conference Interviews with Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) and Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy)
Posted by Samantha Friedman



July 9, 2009




The gang is all back again. Delayed from being in theaters last year hasn't kept the fans away from seeing the favorite characters back on the screen again. Older and wiser, the cast of the latest Harry Potter film, 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince,' came to New York City after its premiere in London to promote the film. At a recent press conference, Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), along with Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) and Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) talked about their latest chapter of the franchise and how their lives have changed over the years.


What did you learn most about your characters this time around and how you felt coming into this film?

Felton: Sure, yeah. This was a great opportunity for myself to dive a little bit deeper into Draco's head and discover that he really is a coward through and through really. So it was really fun to explore a bit deeper and make him more fundamentally three dimensionally.

Wright: Yeah, the same for me. I think you got to more sort of look out with your character that comes. It's not just kind of one section at the beginning and then at the end of the film. It's going to continue with development and so I was able to take the character and sort of had more to do.

Watson: I think in the film you see quite a strong Hermione, quite a girl power Hermione. She's the brains behind the operation, kind of driving the guys around with her. But in this one I think that you see a very different Hermione. She's much more fragile and vulnerable and emotional and she's experiencing her first heartache really. I think she's very confused about how she feels about Ron and how upset she is when he kisses someone else. So it was a challenge for me to play this much more emotional and vulnerable person. It was also fun to do a lot more comedy with Rupert [Grint]. That was great. I had a lot of fun doing this one and I learned a lot.

Grint: Yeah. I like to think this is Ron's best year at Hogwarts, I think. He gets a girlfriend. He joins the quidditch team for the first time. It was nice to have someone to really get stuck into. I really enjoyed it.

Radcliffe: For me, the difference in Harry this year is that in the past whereas he's been…the big change for Harry this year is his relationship with Dumbledore. Previously it's always been very much teacher and student. This year it kind of changes it to being his General, a favorite Lieutenant. I mean, Harry's become a foot soldier in this movie and is happy to be so. Also, in all the other ones you sort of see Harry as being, like, 'Yeah, we're going to get Voldermort. We're going to kill'em.' But no one really does anything towards him, whereas this year he's actually being proactive and planning and actually trying to do something towards the ultimate destruction of Voldemort. That's the difference in Harry this year.



You all seem so grown up now. Ron has a stalker girlfriend in the movie who's impressed with is celebrity. For the three of you, has it gotten that strange, perhaps dating people who are more interested in you being Hermione or Ron or Harry rather than yourselves?

Radcliffe: Well, fortunately I don't think that's the case for any of us.

Watson: I'm dating my stalker.

Laughs

Radcliffe: That's often the best way to deal with it. You just confront them with it then they often go off...

Watson: He's always there when I need him. I can be very. He's so into me.

Laughs

Radcliffe: I'm not but it's still good.

Rupert?

Grint: It sounds quite good really. Get a lot of attention, I suppose. Yeah.

Has it really set in for you guys that this is all truly ending?

Radcliffe: For me it hadn't until this week when everyone seems to be telling me that it's almost over. I was actually getting along quite nicely until people started saying, 'So, well, you're dream is coming to an end.' To be honest, I think speak for most of
us when I say that we've got a year left on seven. It's a long way to go. Then we have to do a lot of publicity and meet up with all of you lovely people twice more. That sounded sarcastic. It wasn't. So there's a long way to go, certainly for us, and so I'm not concentrating on that too much too son.

Watson: And aside from that I think we all feel as if Harry Potter is ever really going to die. I think it's so big and so loved. We have a theme park coming out in 2010 and I think that kids are going to keep reading the books and new generations of the kids are going to keep watching the films and I don't really ever feel like it's going to really go away. I think it's got longevity.

Felton: Yeah. I don't think when they finish filming that that'll be the end of us portraying the characters. I think there will always be a little bit of that inside of us that will remain, at least, and so to speak. But yeah, I'm certainly enjoying it rather than looking ahead and getting a bit sad about it. I'm going to make the most out of it and certainly cry my eyes out when it's finished.


Daniel, one of the best parts of the movie is you dating with a magical twist. How do you manage dating in real life without the benefit of spells?

Watson: He doesn't need them.

Radcliffe: Well, that's very kind of you, Emma. I don't know. I'm not really doing the dating thing. I don't feel like I'm in the world of dating. I don't feel like a young twenty something. I don't have that sort of life. I'm working. I'm happy to be working. In some cases I don't have time to have a girlfriend. I do. I'm like everyone else, I suppose, though. It's weird. People ask if being Harry Potter helps you get girls. I don't know. I was eight or nine when I started doing Harry Potter. So I don't know what it's like to get girls without having the aid of it. So I don't know. How have you all found it?

Laughs


How much time did you spend working on the balance of the drama and the comedy?

Watson: I think it was a nice break. I think if Hermione kept going at the rate she was going in terms of the amounts of worrying she was doing she might've developed a hemorrhage. So it's nice that she had just a bit of light relief for all of us. The kids books are pretty dark. They can be pretty heavy and pretty serious. Having some more of that I think actually heightened the pathos at the end where Dumbledore died. By having some of the lighter stuff it was really shocking. It was like, 'Whoa. A really big figure in the series just died.'

Grint: I think it's one of the funniest ones for me. Jim Broadbent who I think is hilarious in it. Jessie Cave as well, who's my girlfriend [laughs]. I really enjoyed it.

Radcliffe: I have to say that this in terms of the comedy is Rupert's finest hour. He's absolutely brilliant in the movie and kind of reveals himself to be a fantastic application of physical comedy. You balance the dramatic stuff as well, obviously, but the scene on the broomstick in quidditch is something like out of Buster Keaton or something. It's absolutely brilliant. It was wonderful.


Emma and Rupert, there was apparently a kissing scene filmed that didn't make it to the movie. How disappointed were you guys about that? And Rupert, can you talk about your snogging scene, if you had any preparation for that beforehand?

Watson: I think there might've been a small understanding. The kissing scene that they have is in the seventh film. So it wasn't that we did it and it was shit and didn't make it. [laughs] Well, we'll see. We may have to edit for the last one yet, but we did that scene about two weeks ago.

Grint: Yeah. It really wasn't something that we were looking forward to. It was quite a strange thing to kind of have to think about doing that. I think it was alright at the end though.

Watson: Yeah. David [Yates] didn't really let us watch playback. Rupert and I were concerned that it might look ingenuous as we were desperate to get it out of the way. But, no, I think that Rupert and I felt the pressure of this kiss. There's so much media interest and also the fans, this is like ten years worth of tension and hormones and chemistry and everything in like one moment and we had to ace it. It was like, 'Oh, God.' Hopefully we did it. I'm sure you'll critique it. Please, be nice.

Radcliffe: I think, to be honest with you, we're going to come out very well because poor Bonnie [Wright] who's sitting at the other end of this table who obviously has the kiss to me, and I saw the film again a couple of nights ago at the premiere and I really watched it. My, God. My lips are like the lips of a horse. They're like distending independently away from my face and trying to encompass hers, so I apologize Bonnie.

Outburst of laughs

Wright: I didn't notice. Don't worry.

Radcliffe: Just disagree, thank you.


Daniel, since you mentioned horses already, you just finished 'Equus' on Broadway and in London. Do you have another stage project lined up?

Radcliffe: Nothing specific, no. Nice segue by the way though by using the horse. (Laughs) Nothing specific at all. I would love to be back on the stage sometime in the next two or three years, but there's nothing planned at all. I would love to in England and if Broadway would have me back then that would be incredible cause I had an amazing time here.


Can you talk about that great scene when you all raise your wands and what it means to lose Dumbledore?

Radcliffe: I think it's actually a really, really moving moment, the moment when the wands are raised in salutes. I think the dark mark in the sky is slowly kind of eroded by this white light. It's a wonderful moment. But I mean it was a hard scene for me because I at the time of the filming had never lost anyone close to me. You can never hope to imagine what that feels like, what that must feel like. So I was trying to kind of imagine the feelings and I hope that if came even a third of the way close to being a real then I'm happy with that, to be honest. In terms of losing Dumbledore in the series it's very sad for me because I won't get to work so much with Michael [Gambon] in the seventh film. I'll miss him because we have a great time together.


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