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July 7, 2009 - Hotseat: Harry Potter stars

It’s nearly the time Harry Potter fans have been waiting for - the latest film is out on 15 July.

Newsround’s Ricky got to chat to the stars on Monday.

You sent in HUNDREDS of questions so Ricky chose the best ones, added a few of his own and got close-up and personal with Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.

Ricky plays a strange sound to Rupert, asks Daniel about his phone - and tries to get a part in the next film!

Ricky: Talking about your latest Harry Potter movie, what do you make of it?

Emma: It’s really funny and it’s quite dark and I know it’s so boring that I’m saying this for the millionth time (laughs) but I do think they are getting better and this one is no exception.

Emma Watson with Ricky

Ricky:

This will be your sixth premiere, does it change, does it get any more exciting, or more boring?

Emma: It’s got easier as I’ve learnt what to expect. I think the first time I went on to a red carpet I was 11 or 12 and it’s quite something. It’s so nice to see that people are still so fond of the series and so excited about the film.

Ricky: You’ve done quite a lot of photo shoots and you’re quite into fashion as well. Is that something that you want to do in the future?

Emma: Yeah, it’s definitely something I’m interested in. First and foremost I’m an actress and that’s my focus, but it’s always nice to do something different, you know? It’s nice to have a change and it was that for me.

A picture of Ricky over a still from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
This is what Ricky could look like as Harry Potter… scary!

Ricky:

I’ve had a quick chat with Daniel and he says he doesn’t want to play Harry Potter in the last two films and he has asked me to step in.

Emma: (laughs) Really?! Well that’s great news!

Ricky: Well I’m about his height you see! I just wanted to know what you thought of that?

Emma: Perfect! That’s exciting I’m really looking forward to working with you!!

Ricky: Maybe we could start rehearsals later this afternoon?

Emma: (laughs) Yeah sounds great!

Ricky: Emma thank you so much for talking to us.

Emma: No worries, I’ll forward to working with you soon!

Source: CBBC Newsround

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How Potter stars deal with age-old problem of getting older

It has become a ritual akin to the start-of-term dinner at Hogwarts. If it’s the launch of the new Harry Potter movie - world-wide box office for the series so far $4bn and counting - it must be time for the Muggle press to gather and be amazed at how the franchise’s young stars have aged.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth in the series of eight films, finds Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grint (Ron) once again the oldest wand-swinging schoolchildren in town. Radcliffe is pushing 20, Grint is there already, while Watson remains the baby of the bunch at 19.

“It’s weird looking back on the first few films,” said Grint. “It doesn’t seem like us.”
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As the trio assembled in the ballroom at Claridge’s in London for the by now familiar waltz with the press, the questions reflected how much they have changed since the first film eight years ago - and how grim reality can intrude on even the most magical of franchises.

Harry Potter Six was the last screen appearance of Rob Knox, the young actor stabbed in a London street last May.

Radcliffe was yesterday among those paying tribute to the murdered 18-year-old, who played Marcus Belby.

“I won’t pretend I knew him incredibly well, or was his best friend on set, but I knew him and liked him, and what happened to him was obviously tragic and awful.”

Director David Yates added: “With Harry Potter you are surrounded by young people all day long who bring a great commitment to what they do, and Rob was no different. He came in and wanted to do brilliant work, he put his heart and soul into it, and you just think what a terrible waste’.”

The cast will wear white wrist ribbons at tonight’s world premiere in London in tribute to Knox.

Yates said HP Six was “pivotal” in the series. “The cast is getting just that little bit older now and hormones are starting to fly. It marks a real transition point between our cast as children and adults.” Watson was keen to damp down any notions of the love bug biting the cast for real.

“It would be of huge media interest if one of the three of us was hooking up. Unfortunately we don’t have that story for you.”

Rupert Grint became a health story recently after being diagnosed with swine flu.

“It was just like any other sort of flu - sore throat, in bed for a while. It was scary at first because of what’s been in the press.”

He joked: “I was like am I going to die?’, but it was fine.”

Now that the trio are older they can work longer hours on set. With the series due to finish filming next spring, working weeks are stretching to six days. More hours, plus passing their driving tests, are the main signs of the years passing, said Watson.

“None of us have started drinking coffee or smoking. And there’s definitely no alcohol,” she laughed.

Like the royal princes, the Harry Potter set have grown up in public, with the advantages and disadvantages that brings.

“It’s difficult to talk about the things we missed when we gained so much,” said Watson. “We probably had to grow up a lot quicker than normal children, we had a lot of responsibility. In that sense it was difficult and a lot of pressure, but the experience has been so amazing and unique.”

Would she be up for revisiting the role in 20 years’ time?

“Never say never, but I would hope I would have moved on by the time they’re doing Harry Potter, the remake.”

Meanwhile, as internet forums count down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the release of the film, it seems that whether “amazing”, “hurried”, “spontaneous” or “grown-up”, the Potter film promises to beguile its fans well in advance of its scheduled release date.

For two lucky fans who attended the cast preview of the Half-Blood Prince, the film depicts the best of the Potter sequence. Packed with extra scenes, range of character and anticipated romance, Lyria told MuggleNet users: “There are so many moments I keep remembering. This is EASILY the best movie they have made so far. It surpasses all of the others in so many ways.”

The film goes on general release on 15 July.

Source: The Herald

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Potter stars herald the latest installment

HARRY Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint gathered yesterday ahead of the premier of the latest installment of the hit series in London’s Leicester Square.

The sixth film of Scots author JK Rowling’s boy wizard novels, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, opens across the UK next week.

Cast and crew from the new film have revealed that will wear white ribbons on their wrists at the film’s world premiere tonight as a mark of respect to murdered actor Rob Knox.

Knox, 18, who played Marcus Belby in Half-Blood Prince, was stabbed outside a bar in Sidcup, Kent, last May – days after completing the movie. Filming of the first part of the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is already under way.

Source: The Scotsman

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Emma Watson: I pounced on Rupert

Emma Watson has confessed she was so desperate to complete her kissing scene with Harry Potter co-star Rupert Grint, she pounced on him.

The 19-year-old actress plays Hermione Granger in film adaptations of JK Rowling’s hit novels and has worked with Rupert, who plays Ron Weasely, since she was 11.

In the final film, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, their characters share a kiss.

Emma confesses on this week’s Friday Night With Jonathan Ross show that she hated kissing Rupert because there was so much public scrutiny in the scene, adding: “I pounced on him, I was so desperate to get it over with.”

The young actress also revealed she plans to continue acting, despite starting university in September.

She said: “Definitely… I’m so excited about going to university but it doesn’t mean to say I can’t do something else, I want to have my cake and eat it… I’d like to try comedy.”

And Emma insists starting acting at such a young age did not mean missing out on her childhood.

She said: “I never felt like I was missing out… we were able to be kids because we were together, whatever weird thing we were doing.”

Jonathan’s other guest Sandra Bullock denies having had plastic surgery, saying: “I was accused of it, but no-one has asked me to alter my appearance.”

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross airs on BBC One at 10.35pm on Friday July 3.

Source: Press Association

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Daniel rejects idea of dating Emma

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe said there has been “something really incestuous” about the idea of him dating co-star Emma Watson.

The 19-year-old actor said that while a relationship between him and Watson, 19, who plays Hermione Granger, would be “everything the fans ever wanted”, it was just not happening.

But he said the teenage stars of the boy wizard films were all “unbelievably horny” between the filming of the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and the fifth, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

He told Esquire magazine: “There was a period when we were the only boys and girls any of us knew.

“And so, you know, we were all unbelievably horny from about the third film to probably about the end of the fifth; then it all settled down.

“But, God, for a few years…”.

He added: “There was never anybody I fancied that much in the cast, though the conspiracy theorists always like to say that me and Emma are dating.

“We know it’d be everything the fans ever wanted.

“I’m sorry guys, it’s not happening. It’s just not. There’s something really incestuous about the idea of it.”

Radcliffe also said he was bullied at school but used the skills he learned on the film sets to fight back.

Source: Press Association

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I’m no heartthrob, says Harry Potter star Radcliffe

Daniel Radcliffe, the British actor who plays boy wizard Harry Potter, laughed off suggestions he has become a heartthrob on the eve of Tuesday’s premiere of the sixth film of the series.

Radcliffe, 19, who won the role of Harry as a cherubic 11-year-old, has updated his image by appearing naked on stage in the play “Equus” between filming recent adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s phenomenally successful books.

But he said most fans still think of him as the bespectacled Harry.

“If girls like me, it has not been proven yet,” Radcliffe told journalists ahead of the London premiere of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”.

“OK, I go to the red carpet in Tokyo and thousands of girls scream at me… but the me that sits in a darkened room watching cricket for eight hours with a bowl of pasta in his underwear and socks is not quite so attractive to girls.”

Radcliffe admitted in an interview that the male actors on the Potter set had felt male hormones kick as they grew into adolescence on the set, telling Esquire magazine: “We were all unbelievably horny from about the third film to probably about the end of the fifth; then it all settled down.”

But Emma Watson, who plays the geeky Hermione Granger in the films, said fans should forget any hopes of her, Radcliffe and Rupert Grint — who plays the gawky Ron Weasley in the films — pairing off with each other in real life.

“When we were younger, we were always going back and forth to school so it is not as if Rupert and Dan were the only boys I saw,” the 19-year-old said at the news conference.

“I know it would be of huge interest to the media if we were hooking up. But we grew up together and we are just like siblings.

“There have not been any pairings like that (among the cast), I’m afraid.”

Watson admitted that her decision to attend a university in the United States from August was motivated by her desire to “just be a teenager”.

“I am just looking forward to meeting people my own age and having a normal life for once. But that does not mean that I’ll never be acting again.

“It was always my dream (to go to university) before I did the films and so I don’t see why I should change it,” she said.

Just like her character, Watson has excelled at school, despite squeezing in lessons between gruelling days of filming.

“My way of dealing with all this is to read a book,” she admitted. “Oh dear, this is so geeky, but it has got me through it.”

The six Potter films so far have earned 4.5 billion dollars (3.2 billion euros), making them one of the most successful film franchises in history.

Source: AFP

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Romance rocks wizard world in new Potter movie

LONDON (Reuters) - Romantic comedy meets the wizarding world in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment in the hit movie franchise in which hormones, as well as hexes, are on the loose at Hogwarts school.

And with filming on the final two pictures due to wrap up in 2010, the young actors who spent much of their teen years on set and coping with the superstardom their success has brought are finally looking ahead to life after Potter.

“It was nice to be back and to know that this film is, to me, more of a romantic comedy than ever before and that we would have a chance to focus more on that side of things,” said Emma Watson, who plays the feisty bookworm Hermione in the films.

“Sometimes I have to bring myself back with Hermione, because she is so innocent and so naive and she really is very vulnerable in this film,” the 19-year-old actress told reporters on Monday at a press conference to publicize the movie.

“She really does get her heart broken by Ron and Lavender and that whole situation.”

Director David Yates, who also made the fifth movie “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” added: “Our cast are just getting that little bit older now and the hormones are starting to fly and for me it marks a real transition point between our cast as children and our cast as adults.”

In Half-Blood Prince, out in theatres on July 15, Hogwarts is increasingly vulnerable to attack from Lord Voldemort, wizard Potter’s nemesis.

Professor Slughorn, played by Jim Broadbent, joins the cast, and Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore places more and more trust in his star pupil Potter, determined to prepare him for his inevitable showdown with Voldemort.

Meanwhile, love blossoms, with Harry drawn to Ginny and Ron attracting the attention of Lavender Brown as a heartbroken Hermione looks on jealously.

END IN SIGHT

The films, the first five of which have earned an impressive $4.5 billion at the box office, are based on British author J.K. Rowling’s seven-book Harry Potter series, which has sold an estimated 400 million copies worldwide.

There will be eight films in all, with the final volume, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” divided into two.

“We’re working at the moment on Deathly Hallows, and I think we’re all aware that this great juggernaut is reaching the end of its journey in a way,” said Yates, who is also directing Deathly Hallows Parts One and Two.

“We finish shooting next spring and everybody comes to work … with that knowledge in the back of their mind.”

According to Hollywood studio Warner Bros., the seventh film is scheduled to hit cinemas in November, 2010 and the eighth in the summer of 2011.

“I’d like to continue acting, really, if I can,” said Rupert Grint, who plays Ron.

“It’s kind of all coming to an end now and I suppose you’ve got to start thinking about that kind of thing.”

Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry and has starred on the Broadway stage, also plans to go on acting.

“Hopefully just keep acting is the plan. I just want to keep going for as long as I can and I’ve had a fantastic time with Potter. I will be very sad to leave it.”

Watson is going to university in the United States.

“I’m very excited and looking forward to a bit of normality for a while, it would be nice,” she said. “But that by no means means that by going to university I’m never going to act again.”

Source: Reuters

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All grown up: The Harry Potter gang nine years on… Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint begin the long goodbye

Their hair may be more expensively styled and their outfits more flamboyant. But their beaming smiles are much the same.

As Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe posed at the launch of the sixth film, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, they must have been reflecting on their nine years in the spotlight.

Plucked from obscurity in 2000, they beat more than 40,000 applicants to their roles. In the intervening years they have amassed more than £45million between them.

With filming on the last installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, almost completed, the trio are now preparing for life after Hogwarts.

According to Hollywood studio Warner Bros, the seventh film is scheduled to hit cinemas in November, 2010 and the eighth in the summer of 2011.

At today’s press conference at Claridge’s Hotel in Mayfair, director David Yates, who also made the fifth movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, said: ‘Our cast are just getting that little bit older now and the hormones are starting to fly and for me it marks a real transition point between our cast as children and our cast as adults.’

Emma, 19, is off to America, where she will study at Columbia University.

She has talked of becoming an ‘anonymous’ student and has registered under her middle name of Charlotte.

But, despite her change in direction, Emma is fast becoming the highest profile of the trio, eclipsing even Harry himself.

She is making strides in putting her role as Hermione behind her, starring in advertising campaigns for Burberry and fronting the covers of numerous glossy fashion magazines.

‘I’m very excited and looking forward to a bit of normality for a while, it would be nice,’ she said today. ‘But that by no means means that by going to university I’m never going to act again.

‘It was nice to be back and to know that this film is, to me, more of a romantic comedy than ever before and that we would have a chance to focus more on that side of things.

‘Sometimes I have to bring myself back with Hermione, because she is so innocent and so naive and she really is very vulnerable in this film. She really does get her heart broken by Ron and Lavender and that whole situation.’

Emma says with the end of filming on the series of eight films, she will be saying goodbye to her ’second family’ on the Watford set.

‘It’s going to sound dramatic, but I feel like it’s going to be my life over as I know it,’ she said. ‘My whole life has been about Harry Potter and then all of that will shut down and I don’t know what it will be like.

‘I go to university in September – I’ll be doing bits and bobs at Christmas, but September feels like my cut-off point, the moment when I’ll really stop.’

Daniel Radcliffe, who turns 20 this month, has chosen to focus on establishing a name for himself as a serious actor, finding acclaim on the stage in high-profile Broadway and West End shows.

The actor, who stars in the films as Harry Potter, even stripped off for his demanding role in the disturbing Equus.

But he has admitted to having doubts about his future in the acting world.

‘Hopefully just keep acting is the plan,’ he said today. ‘I just want to keep going for as long as I can and I’ve had a fantastic time with Potter. I will be very sad to leave it.’

In an interview with this month’s Esquire he revealed that despite his success he has fears about the future: ‘The thing is, in a few years I’ll be 21, 22, and that’s when all the guys who’ve been at drama school will come out.

‘They’ve been learning dance or singing and all that stuff, and I’m going to need to compete with them because I won’t have Harry Potter as my safety net any more.’

The final member of the trio, Rupert Grint, also appeared at today’s press call, despite only just recovering from a mild bout of swine flu.

The 20-year-old, who plays Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley, was equally modest about his prospects.

‘It’s always at the back of my mind that acting might come to an end for me when Harry Potter finishes. I don’t know if I’m good enough to have a long career,’ he said.

‘I’ve got a bit of an inferiority complex about my acting. My self-esteem is quite low in that sense.’

Despite Rupert’s worries he has just completed filming on Wild Target, in which he stars alongside Bill Nighy as an apprentice hitman. He also starred in the gritty thriller Cherrybomb, in which he played a troubled youth dabbling in sex, drugs and violence.

But, whatever happens to the Harry Potter stars in their future careers, they are financially set up for life - with personal fortunes worth tens of millions of pounds.

At 20 years old, Radcliffe is worth £30million, while Ms Watson has banked more than £10million. Grint, also 20, has picked up £5million. The movies, based on JK Rowling’s books, have raked in almost £3billion in worldwide box office sales.

Knox, 18, played Marcus Belby in the new movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and was stabbed five times outside a bar in Sidcup, Kent, last May - just days after completing the film.

The actor was defending his younger brother when he was attacked by Karl Bishop, who is now serving four life sentences for the murder.

The film has its world premiere in London’s Leicester Square tomorrow, and cast members said they would wear white ribbons in memory of Knox.

Radcliffe said Knox’s death had hit all of the cast.

‘I won’t pretend I knew him incredibly well, or was his best friend on set, but I knew him and liked him, and what happened to him was obviously tragic and awful,’ he said.

Co-star Bonnie Wright, who plays Ginny Weasley - younger sister of Harry’s best friend Ron - said the cast wanted to show solidarity with all victims of knife crime.

‘It’s going to be quite a traumatic experience for his family, who’ve been very supportive of him. Obviously tomorrow is going to be quite difficult, going to see him in the film,’ she said.

‘We wanted to wear as a mark of respect a white ribbon, not only for his life but for other families who have experienced this traumatic crime.’

Source: Daily Mail

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Potter star to act through studies

Emma Watson, who plays Hermione Grainger in the Harry Potter films, said she plans to continue acting even though she is due to start university in the US later this year.

The 19-year-old said that, like her swotty screen alter ego, reading and studying was her “comfort”, and what got her through almost a decade of making the Potter films.

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince has its premiere in London on Tuesday, and with only two left to make, Grainger said she was looking forward to being a “normal teenager”, but insisted her move across the pond was not an “escape”.

“There’s been a lot of confusion in the media that university is mutually exclusive, that I can’t act as well as study at the same time, and I seem to have managed it okay up to this point so that’s what I hope to continue to do.” she says.

Watson scored a clean sweep of As in her GCSE and A-level exams, and said last week that she hoped the broad curriculum offered by US universities would help make up for school lessons she missed while making the Potter films.

She said: “I think I’m just looking forward to being a teenager for a bit, meeting people my own age and just kind of being normal for a bit.”

Watson has been recently announced as the new face of fashion label Burberry, but learning was her real passion, she added.

“I love learning and I don’t ever want to stop. It was always my dream before doing the films and I don’t see why it should change.”

Source: Press Association

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Harry Potter’s Emma Watson: my dream role as a university student

The 19-year-old will put her career on hold next month to enrol at an Ivy League college, thought to be Columbia University in New York.

While other young actresses in her position would head for Hollywood, Watson said she was thrilled at the thought of spending the next few years in academia. She has played Hermione Granger, a pupil at Hogwarts, since the age of 10.

“At the end of August I’m going to university in the States, which I’m very excited about. I’m looking forward to a bit of normality for a while,” Watson said on the eve of the world premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth film in the franchise.

“I don’t want to put a negative light on it, as if I’m escaping or anything like that, but I’m just looking forward to being a normal teenager for a bit and meeting people my own age.

“I’m going to sound really like Hermione Granger, but my comfort - my way of dealing with all of this if I’m ever really stressed - I will go and open a book and sit and read, and that will de-stress me. For me, learning has been my comfort. This is so geeky, but it’s what got me through. I love learning and I don’t really want to stop. It was always my dream before I did the films, so I didn’t see why that had to change.”

Watson said she hoped to fit in the odd acting project during her holidays. “There seems to have been a lot of confusion in the media, because I’m going to university, that university and acting are mutually exclusive - that I can’t act as well as study at the same time. I seem to have managed it up to this time!”

The teenager was recently unveiled as the face of Burberry and is a regular at fashion shows. “As I get older, I’m aware people care about what I put on my body, which is strange,” she said, explaining that her foray into modelling is a way of distancing herself from her role as Hermione.

“I’ve been trying to play different characters in each of the fashion shoots I’ve done and I hope that people can look at me differently. It would be very naive of me not to be aware that it will be hard for audiences to separate us from these characters we are so identified with, so I think that has been my way of expressing myself.”

Watson was joined by Radcliffe and Grint at a press conference for the Harry Potter film, which opens nationwide on July 15.

Grint was recently diagnosed with swine flu, but has made a full recovery. “It was quite scary when they first told me I had swine flu, after what’s been in the press and stuff. I thought, ‘Am I going to die?’ But it was just like any other flu I’ve had before. I just had a sore throat,” he said.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

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