Before Matthew Lewis, better known as Neville Longbottom, attended Tuesday’s Toronto premiere of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2, he chatted with us about the movie and more. Here’s what he had to say (minor spoilers ahead!):
On learning from the cast of HARRY POTTER:
Just by being around them, the professionalism, you just try to absorb so much and they’re all brilliant as well. The thing that they really taught me, and it has nothing to do with acting, were the careers they’ve had. Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman… and yes, the lack of ego, how they can just be so lovely, and so easy to work with and get along with. It’s really inspiring actually, and I think that’s helped everyone stay grounded, because… they’re just people, you know. Michael Gambon tells filthy jokes and Alan Rickman talks about scrambled eggs, and it’s really what people do, and it’s nice.
How Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) inspired him:
On his last day, I went to his trailer to tell him how amazing he is, because he’s a personal hero of mine. I never told him that until the last day of filming. I thought that on the last day I might as well go and admit it…. I just expected him to say thanks and close the door, but he didn’t. He said, ‘Come in, sit down.’ We chatted about what was next, and that was why I was doing theatre, because he told me to. And when Alan Rickman tells you to do something, you do it.
On Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid):
What a guy… me and Robbie were out in Orlando for the opening of the theme park, and we went to NASA. Robbie’s huge into his space shuttles and mechanics and all that kind of stuff…. He was doing a tour of the U.S. in a car, an old car that he’d renovated himself, and he found an old space shuttle book full of all this enthusiasm for the future, published in like 1968 or something, and he thought of me and sent it to me, and then, you know, how nice, what a lovely thing to do, and it shows you that no matter how great they are, they’re just regular, lovely people.
On what he’ll miss about Harry Potter:
The familiarity of everything, knowing everybody, being able to experiment with the role and not have to worry about it, being able to fail, and not have to be concerned…. Again, it’s just that part of there being no egos on set, and everyone’s such good friends, and I’ll miss that.
How he felt when filming ended:
I finished the filming and I never felt this emotion that everyone else is talking about, and I never really got it. It was sad, but I never really felt like crying or anything like that, and then we got to the premiere in London just last week, and I looked out across this sea of people and I realized that this was the last time we’re going to be presenting our film, Harry Potter, to these fans. We really do have the best fans in the world, you know? I’ve said that every year. That’s what I’ll be missing.
On this final movie being in 3D:
I was very, very worried about this 3D version. Some of the films I saw… were not that good. But I thought if David Yates, David Heyman and David Barron believe that this will better the film, and it will not detract from the story, then I trust them implicitly. Because the story means so much to those three, so much, and there’s no way they would ever let it go ahead…. After the first scene, I completely forgot I was wearing 3D glasses, and the only moment I remembered was when I had to wipe the tears from my eyes from Alan Rickman’s performance. He was splendid…. There were some moments that were just… with the snake and with the fire and the dragon. It just looked fantastic. I was very impressed.
The training involved in preparing for his role in DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2:
For the last couple years, [we’ve] been training with a stunt team… just to try to stay in shape, because the stunt team were much more confident in letting us do stunts if they knew what we’re capable of, same with the producers and it definitely relaxes the insurance people a great deal…. We were on [set for] some pretty late nights, you know 2 to 3 in the morning, just running up and down a bridge, but it looked great. I was so pleased with it.
On playing opposite Voldemort in DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2:
I’ll tell you something about Ralph [Fiennes, who plays Voldemort]. He’s frightening, and the thing was… David Yates doesn’t like to do too many takes. He likes to get it as quick as possible… because he thinks [the scenes are] the most natural when there’s as little rehearsal as possible…. So, for that scene when Neville steps forward and stands up to Voldemort, we did quick blocking when we read through the lines with our own clothes. Ralph had hair, he had a nose, that kind of stuff, and it added, I don’t know if he meant to do it… but he just stared at me. He just never took his eyes off me…. It felt like he was staring into my soul, and I just didn’t know what to do. I just sort of got on with it, then we went away, got dressed, put makeup on, we came back to do it and it worked. Everybody else just melted away, at this total vision, just me and Ralph, and I realized that I really need to up my game, because he’s just so brilliant. I don’t know if I was any good, but that’s up to the people at home to decide. I just enjoyed the challenge of it really and he’s not like that in real life.
How they celebrated the end of filming:
We actually did make a book. I’ve not got it yet, but… I think we all wrote a little something and it’s going to go into this yearbook kind of thing from the crew as well. There are a lot of people in this film; we call [them] “lifers”…. These people who work five times harder than we do on the cast and get about a million times less recognition, and it’s such a shame. So, this book, it’s called “The Crew Book,” and it was very much for them as well as us.
Thank you Matthew Lewis!
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© 2011 Warner Bros. Ent.
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