Scholastic Interviews Dan Radcliffe and Emma Watson

Actor Interviews

Scholastic has a new, very in-depth interview with Dan Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) which covers a broad range of topics from the filming of "Deathly Hallows" to how they felt about the the film series coming to a conclusion. Both discuss the hardest action scene they had to film, and both mention scenes from "Deathly Hallows":

Q: In all the movies, there have been some amazing action sequences. What was the scariest stunt you had to do?
Emma: There's a scene where we're [trapped] in Gringott's Bank and Hermione has this crazy idea to jump on the back of a dragon. She's on this second story balcony and she jumps off the balcony onto the dragon's back and doing that stunt was terrifying because I essentially had to jump off—it was a mat that caught me—but just doing the jump and everything was pretty scary.

Q: Daniel, what was the hardest scene for you?
Daniel: To be honest, a lot of scenes I've completely forgotten about because you film something for 18 months, and if there's something in the trailer from the 1st month of filming, it's like, "Oh my God. I'd totally forgotten about the scene." I suppose getting beaten up by Ralph Fiennes [who plays Voldemort] in the 2nd part was physically quite demanding. What I love about that scene is that it's the moment that I've been wanting to happen for years. I've always wanted a moment when the magic is not enough and he just tries to kill Harry physically by beating him up. So that was a challenging scene, but I mean, there was a lot of physically challenging stuff in the film, but I love that. I love running up and down and falling over and getting hit around. I love all that.

The stuff early on in the 1st part with myself and Rupert [who plays Ron] where we're fighting and hating each other, that was emotionally challenging, because it's very hard to hate Rupert Grint, even in acting.

Both Watson and Radcliffe also discuss the make-up process for the Epilogue scene in "Deathly Hallows: Part 2":

Q: There is a lot of secrecy as to what your make-up looks like for the older versions of you. Can you tell us about what went into looking older?
Emma: It was a pretty lengthy process. I think it was like over 2 hours. But it was really subtle. They had like this thin film that they put on our faces which went into our wrinkles to make all of that happen. Really subtle details made a huge difference. I wore fake teeth and a wig, but it all looked really real, so it was cool.
Daniel: Obviously, I was concerned about the aging scene and I was concerned about how we were going to do it and everything, but I tell you the makeup looks fantastic. Particularly, I hate to say it, but I'm very pleased with my makeup. Harry ages much more flatteringly than Ron does. I think as soon as they presented Rupert with the fat suit he was like, "Make it bigger." We had great fun doing that scene and I think it turned out very well.

Additionally, both actors discussed a party Watson held to celebrate the end of filming all the Harry Potter movies:

Q: Emma, you threw a party for the whole cast on the last day. Can tell us about the festivities?
Emma: I threw a dinner. I just bought a new apartment in London. I tried to make it look really nice. I bought tons of flowers. I lit candles everywhere and everyone had place settings and I made food for everyone to come and eat and also I put together . . . I made like a book for everyone and I had silly questions like who was your first crush on the set? What was your best memory? What was your worst memory? Who was your favorite director? . . stuff like that, that's just really fun. And everyone had a piece of paper to write it all down, but we all discussed our answers and went around and listened to people's stories and what they remembered. It was just a really nostalgic evening basically, just all of us sharing stories. It was a really nice evening and it was warm weather, so we sat outside as well, and I bought disposable cameras for the tables, so everyone could use those, and it was just fun. It was just chill.
Daniel: It was lovely. It was fantastic. Emma cooked and she was very impressive. She was very much the hostess with the mostest. I've never had a dinner party in my life—the idea terrifies me, so I would have been so intimidated by that, but yeah, she got sort of the core of the young cast members and we all went round to her house and it was great. It was really, really nice, very dripping with nostalgia, all reminiscing about early days and how young and cute and innocent we all were. Yeah, it was a really, really good night and we were all very grateful. 'Cause to be honest with you, if you talked to me or Rupert, neither of us would have had the wherewithal to put together a dinner party, so the fact that she did was really appreciated.

Also, they were asked what they would do if J. K. Rowling decided to write another Harry Potter book:

Q: If J.K. Rowling called you up tomorrow and said, "I’m writing another book. I decided to come out of retirement and write more Harry Potter, would you want to star in that next movie?"
Emma: Oh my goodness. No, I wouldn't. It feels so complete what we've done. It would just be weird. No. No way. It would just be really strange.
Daniel: No, probably not is the answer because 10 years is enough. I think the films have reached a rather perfect and wonderful conclusion, and I have had assurances from [Rowling] that she will not be doing that.

There is much more to the interview and you can read it all here.