Actor David Thewlis (Remus Lupin) was in Toronto, Ontario, Canada today for the International Festival of Authors, and gave his reaction to the news from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling regarding Dumbledore. The actor said that he was surprised, because while he was filming “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” director Alfonso Cuaron had the idea that Lupin was gay,”and he described my character like a ‘gay junkie’ .” At this link you can watch a short video interview with the actor who discusses his reaction and more. David Thewlis will be in Toronto again tomorrow to promote his new novel “The Late Hector Kipling” before returning to England to complete work on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
REMUS AND TONKS! Ahh, I love them so much. Ah, the whole Cuaron thing makes sense.. I also don’t think Remus was properly cast, but I’m fine with David as him.
I agree with everyone who says the Tonks/Remus storyline in DH was really badly played out. I never believed it for one second because there was no affection for Tonks from Remus at all. He even calls her Nymphadora at one point a name she hated. Jo wrote Remus as an idiot in this book and Tonks was just pathetic from HBP onwards.
Personally, I didn’t think this was such a big deal. As someone else basically pointed out, it would be kinda hard for Cuaron to explain to him how he wanted him to perform the role by telling him to act like a werewolf. It doesn’t mean Lupin WAS a gay junkie, but keeping such a concept in mind helped form the performance and created the shunned loner persona.
It reminds me of Gore Vidal’s comments regarding his work in the Ben Hur script. In order to find a way of explaining why two men who had been such close friends became such bitter enemies, he wrote the scenes with subtext of them once being lovers and Ben Hur later spurning Messalah. It wasn’t necessary to show that relation, but it helped him work on the scenes between the two. Once those scenes were created it wasn’t necessary to enter anything in the relation into the movie nor was it necessary form the actors to perform the parts knowing this. (Heston definitely did not know this.) However, the director did and between what was used to create the script and his instructions to Heston and Boyd the achieved the desired results.
If Cuaron does the last movie, and the general public doesn’t like it, at least it’s not like that’ll ruin Warner Bros.’ chances at making another Harry Potter Film ;)
The last two movies were the most coherent while not being total kiddie fair, but I still find Azcaban the most enjoyable to watch (accepting that any Harry Potter Movie is going to have huge missing story chunks) but that’s personal taste. I liked the sort of dark humor running through it.
I am happy to have the director of the least financially successful film because it was the most critically acclaimed film. Money does not equal quality. Columbus’s Sorcerer’s Stone made the most money and I think most people would agree that Columbus would not be the best director for DH.
I’ve always imagined Lupin (and Sirius a bit too) as gay, even after he got married and had a kid. I was actually hoping he was, because I thought that’d be cool and it seemed to just be right for one of my favorite characters. David Thewlis is PERFECT as Lupin.
“Money does not equal quality. Columbus’s Sorcerer’s Stone made the most money and I think most people would agree that Columbus would not be the best director for DH.”
Better him that Cuaron again. Artsy does not equal quality either. Actually, if he has the energy for a third I would like to see Yates do DH. The last three books are much more closely tied together that say the first three. They need one vision, not a series of changing perspectives And the last thing the need is another Booompy Ride from Cuaron
Cauron thought of Lupin as a gay junkie? Sheesh, and all this time I wondered why my favorite book had become my least favorite movie. ;)
Alright, the above comment is not (completely) serious, but Lupin’s behavior in the Shrieking Shack did really throw me off. Instead of being the cool and rational one who explains the history of the Marauders to Harry, he acted quite freakish and deranged throughout the shack scene.
I think I could have still enjoyed it even with the strange behavior if they had included at least some of the back-story provided by Lupin in the movie.
Seriously though, a junkie? With the exception of the 7th book (and his monthly changes), when has Lupin ever acted as anything other than completely calm? Even when the moon was rising in the book, he was coherent up until the final moments before the change.
"I doubt whether any Hogwarts students ever found out more about the Hogwarts grounds and Hogsmeade than we did... And that's how we came to write the Marauder's Map, and sign it with our nicknames. Sirius is Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. James was Prongs."
REMUS AND TONKS! Ahh, I love them so much. Ah, the whole Cuaron thing makes sense.. I also don’t think Remus was properly cast, but I’m fine with David as him.