You’ve adapted both Contact and very recently Peter Pan. How did those projects help you adapt Potter?
Writer Michael Goldenberg: “Well you always learn as you go on every time. For me they’re not that different in that all those films deal with very heightened realities that are based in real characters and rooted in a real reality. It’s that wonderful tension between the incredible believability and realism that David brought to Order of the Phoenix versus that incredible heightened world. There’s something about that science fiction or fantasy working as a metaphor for those inner dramas.”
What characteristics did you like in Dolores Umbridge?
Imelda Staunton: “Oh God! First of all, I’m not an actress who needs to really like their character in order to play them. You’ve got to admire her tenacity. Her ability to believe in herself and to do her job so well and to not let nothing stand in the way to do her job. Never doubting what she’s doing.”
You were on a harness for a stunt at one point. What was that like?
Imelda Staunton: “I was hanged in something once. I had to be in a harness for that. I had a lot of nice dramatic scenes to do without special effects so when I got to be in a harness I was [ready].”
Are there a lot of deleted scenes and what we can look forward to on the DVD?
Director David Yates: “We actually didn’t lose that much. It’s really interesting because we had such a tight script going in. There are about a half of dozen scenes that are going to be on the DVD extras. There’s a really sweet scene with Emma Thompson who plays Trelawney. I just did this improvised scene with her while she’s eating dinner while Imelda is doing the big speech in the Great Hall. Emma does this whole comedic routine where you know she’s very short-sighted so she ends up spilling her dinner all over. It goes on for about three minutes. It’s really Chaplin-esque, actually. Obviously there was no room in the film for that so we’ve stuck it on the DVD extras. There’s a terrific scene with Imelda and Emma when Imelda is kind of assessing Trelawney and we montage that whole scene in the cut. It’s actually a self-contained scene in its own right. It’s actually very funny. And then three or four other things that are quite fun...”
