Since you’re going to be directing the next Harry Potter, what are your plans for the sixth film?
Director David Yates: “One thing we said when we finished Order of the Phoenix was that we want a very different experience next time around. We’re very proud of this film, the intensity, the emotion and everything. One of the great things Jo Rowling does in the book is that she captures stages of childhood, so the next stage of childhood is a bit more sex, drugs and rock and roll.”
Producer David Heyman: “No drugs.”
Director David Yates: “It’s about the kind of emotional and sexual politics of being a teenager. It’s a very different swing, the next film. I think it needs to be for the series to keep evolving. In my work, every choice I’ve made I’ve always gone for something in the neurotically opposite direction. Once I’ve finished something, I’ve stayed keen to stay fresh as a story teller to try something different. The Potter world is so rich. They’re so many things to play with in that world that it’s possible to re-gear so the next one will be very different, I think.”
Has anything eerie ever happened on set? Anything you couldn’t explain?
Producer David Barron: “Sometimes things have taken an inexplicitly long time.”
Director David Yates: “There are no ghosts at Leavesden. Nothing weird has happened.”
Producer David Heyman: “It’s a place without that much mystery. It does have history. It’s an old Rolls-Royce factory. It’s where they used to make [cars]. The roofs leak. There are buckets everywhere.”
Producer David Barron: “It’s very un-Californian. Actually, it keeps us all down to earth because you’re making this mega movie and you hear these plop, plop, plops.”
Did you maintain a distance when the cameras were off so that you could keep that strained relationship with the kids?
Imelda Staunton: “No. The character works in the moment when you’re doing the scene. I think it’s important when you’re not doing it, to have an ordinary relationship because I don’t want to carry it around. I don’t need to do that and I probably don’t know how to. I think it’s healthy to channel the work in the moment, in the scene, to leave it there and revisit it and leave it alone.”
Producer David Heyman: “We’ve been very lucky with new actors of great experience come to Harry Potter with incredible experience that they share with the kids. They also come with great enthusiasm. Imelda kept everyone laughing all day and helped make what is a great experience already even greater. Not only do they push everybody to be better actors, just as David Yates does, they also make it more fun.”
Were you a fan of Potter before taking this on yourself and what’s up next for you?
Imelda Staunton: “Well I was a fan. I have a daughter and a pulse of course. I’d seen the films. So, yes I was and was happy to be part of it. At the moment, I’m in the middle of a five part BBC costume drama called Cranford Chronicles.”
What period is that?
Imelda Staunton: “It’s 1842. It’s with Judi Dench.”
So it’s a tad different than this?
Imelda Staunton: “A tad.”
Are you prepared to tweak the sixth film based on anything you learn in the seventh book?
Director David Yates: “We’d be crazy not to take a look at the seventh book and not let us influence us as we’re refining the sixth script. I think there may be things that could be really helpful, so we’ll be looking at it as soon as it comes out.”
Producer David Heyman: “But, at the same time, in a way it’s foreshadowing. If you look at this film, there are occasional looks by Ginny which foreshadow the relationship between her and Harry. For the most part, I think with each of the films we try to keep them true to themselves. We don’t bring four into three and three into two and two into one. They are self-contained units just the way they’re books that work on their own terms. But inevitably we will look at seven and there will be things. Even in this one actually things we cut out that when we showed the script to Jo she was like, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ So that taps us back in.”
Have any of you been fortunate enough to read the seventh book and if not, when and where will you be reading it?
Producer David Heyman: “We’re the eleventh.”
Producer David Barron: “We’ve loved to have read it, but unfortunately we’ll read it at the same time as everyone else.”
When you have such a hardcore fan base the way Potter does who seem to know every word in the books, do you tamper with that in the screenplay? Also, what was it like to have a die-hard fan like Evanna Lynch [who plays Luna Lovegood] looking over your shoulder?
Writer Michael Goldenberg: “Certainly you can’t not be aware of all of those fans out there, but we’re all fans ourselves. From the very beginning it was very liberating because from the first time we met with Jo she gave us permission to do whatever was necessary to make a great film. She told us she wants to see a great movie and understands that now more than anybody what you need to do to translate from one medium to another. It felt like we were on pretty solid terrority there. When we started we wanted to keep up with the spirit of the books and to make the best possible movie and version of that story.”
Director David Yates: “I think ultimately the ambition is to kind of reflect that spirit because you inevitably have to loose things along the way to service a theatrical experience for an audience. Evanna was just utterly delightful to be around. I’m sure she knows more than J.K. Rowling. She’s just a formidable mind of information. She’s very sweet and very lovely and she really knew Luna inside and out. I was able to lean on that and we were able to have very frank conservations about what Luna would and wouldn’t do. She’s just so delightful and she’s a natural actor. That’s what was really delightful about her is that you can’t see the acting. That’s my favorite kind of acting, actually.”
Page 3: Dolores Umbridge and Deleted Scenes
