A Conversation between JK Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe

Jo Rowling asked me to read this here today having seen Dan Radcliffe screen test I don't think Chris Columbus could have found a better Harry I wish Dan Emma and Rupert the very best of luck and hope that they have as much fun acting the first year at Hogwarts as I had light yet I'm tiny tiny bit like Harry because I'd like to have an owl staring out at a room full of reporters on his very first day as Harry Potter blinking that the popping flashbulbs and gangly fending off reporters questions there was no doubt about it Daniel Radcliffe was in for the ride of his life [Music] for ten years Daniel has lived the fantasy on the cloistered sense at least in studios and facing the frenzied excitement of fans from around the world it's been a strange and wondrous and sometimes even unsettling journey and the one person who can really identify with Daniel's incredible journey is JK Rowling herself because she's lived it - in 1990 she began writing her seven book Harry Potter series with little expectation and then watched it grow into a phenomenon unprecedented in the world of literature and now for the first time on camera JK Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe will share their experiences over a decade of Harry Potter [Music] how are you glad I just read on no no no it's all pretty Tennessee yeah excellent so this is exciting yes to ask each other one of the things we've asked each other off camera but now do it in front but now do it yeah right absolutely and try and I'm gonna try and be much more profound and insightful than I ever have before I'm looking forward to this so I was ya know this is this is this is my chance where I realized that doing the interviewing is actually not an easy thing to do at all that's okay we can swap I can interview yeah yeah that would be brilliant okay so I thought to begin at the beginning how involved were you in the casting process and how much do I have to thank you for um but do you remember the grace' yeah I I was I was involved not to the extent that I was sitting you know in on auditions but they were keeping me really fully informed as you know we found Rupert nemr and they were perfect and that was a done deal and we still couldn't find you will you say how you were found well it was just it was amazing really it's it was a bizarre kind of moment I'm originally what had happened was that David Heyman de Pio Xie knew my dad because my dad had been a literary agent and my dad had worked with David's mum and so David sort of asked my dad if I would audition and the original deal was the we'd heard was going to be to do six films and it was gonna be done in America and it was all sort of you know it's gonna be done in America no one ever talked about well you know wasn't thankful well obviously maybe that's why it's like because you probably put your foot down at some point or they just watch I won't agree to that would have been nothing but I'm not somebody who particularly believes in faith and destiny and all those things but my parents do and so the final straw was the fact that I was I went to the theater to see a production of stones in his pockets and David Heyman and Steve Clovis who adapted all but one of the books happened to be sitting in the road front and I was I was sat there for the whole time thinking why is that man staring at me this is very creepy it was like I need to phone someone it was very odd and I remember at the interval my mom and my dad both looking kind of quite intense about something but you know when as a kid you're you you're aware you're being purposely kept out of the loop you know if your own good kind of thing and I mean we went up the stairs and out of the theater I then sort of hid behind a pillar I seem to remember that it's absurd notion that David Aames D close we're gonna chase our then there was some debate as to whether we would go back in for the second or but I was really enjoying the day yeah and so we went back in and then the next day they kind of my mom and dad sort of went oh well maybe maybe it is the God sort of trying to tell us something you know there were a lot of strange coincidences mmm and then they called me and said we think we found him and then the first time I ever saw you was on screen in my sitting room at home because I see how they sent me a video of you and the curious thing is and I'm like yeah I don't believe in fate and destiny I would assume a thing I think he's not so much yeah absolutely I think you make your own yeah but um so I saw you on that audition tape and O's I had I don't think I've ever really told you that I found incredibly moving oh thank you almost I mean it was incredibly moving at that point I didn't have a son so and I phoned David up and I said he's he's he's great he's fantastic and I room I did say to David it was like watching a son my son on screen because after all Harry felt like feels like this ghostly something that I've had in my life but you know to be honest you and Rupert and Emma are all too good-looking frankly you are you know the characters were geeky and you did you know that was gonna happen did you sort of think they might be it I'm not need yes I did particularly when I you know what it was really lucky I spoke to Emma first on the phone before I met her because I fell absolutely in love with her she said to me I've only ever acted in school drama plays before I got my god so knows can't believe she smoked like 60 seconds at least without drawing breath and I just said Emma you're perfect and then when I met her and she was this very beautiful witch she still is of course beautiful girl I just kinda had to go okay I hey it's film do you know deal with it I'm gonna still see my kooky geeky ugly duckling Hermione in my mind but do you think that in a way we shot ourselves in the foot with things like that for then Emma's reveal in the fourth film where she comes downstairs and there is supposed to have been this transformation well exactly as we're all looking down well she was already beautiful girl yeah big deal now she's a beautiful girl in a beautiful dress yes I'm putting her in fair isle sweaters in the first film didn't make her ugly ugly but it was it was quite a big deal for me that I I had written you know a strong female character who was primarily about brain yeah and that she chose to become a little more groomed and glamorous as you know us geeks do it's a certain point in our lives but I accepted it Emma's a great actress and I loved her as a person yeah and I felt there were so many connections between her and Hermione that did it matter that she was beautiful come on but it was interesting you mentioned about that audition because I was given a copy of my audition where I was there whatever it turns out because me know neither me repair never could remember this but they turned that we did all audition together once they there was a screen test where they all tested at all at the same time and I could hear Chris Columbus's voice off-camera I just remembered God he was brilliant he was amazing with us I like I don't think anybody else could have got the enthusiasm out of those what a real family man I remember meeting him and being I don't know where it's not the right word but obviously this is the person who's gonna be taking my baby and say my foot when I met Steve Clovis and I absolutely adore as well but you know first time you meet these people and he was just such a such a nice guy and I've and the relief both that my book would be in safe hands but to be honestly that you were all going to be in safe hands as well in England is different than in America in America they treat you first and foremost as a star and then as a child or as actually you should be treated as a kid first and then an actor second do you think you had any idea that young of what what what you were really taking on dude not really because I hadn't I wasn't even then fully Oh of the scale of the at all I mean I had the first to read to me by my dad who incidentally did a great basilisk voice did he um yeah fantastic back in the day I did actually at one place actually imagine your daddy yeah my god my I did actually suggest it to Chris Columbus which my dad was completely mortified by but no I was son no I don't think I could have ever had any and even now I don't actually think I have an understanding of how far reaches because it is a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees you know is it's I'm so much in the middle of it that I actually can't see how far out it stretches I had exactly the same experience although I think for a while I deliberately kept myself insulated from it I didn't want to think about it and when people people would give me statistics so many books sold or so many territories covered and you just you just think I just want it to be me in my desk I don't and you know again people will watch and think that come on you know you could see the royalty checks coming in I'm sure you noticed this yes absolutely I knew it was that there was a scariness and a pressure and sometimes a weirdness about the and you know this and I know this when people are obsessional about something on the outer fringes you will you will have you know strange things going on that you maybe don't want to focus on too much when you just want to write your book as you say so you with your desk I'd rather be in my aircraft hanging outside leaves them with the rest of the trailer so you couldn't have condos I can remember the first premiere and you were you were shaking yeah you were but it was I don't think any of us knew what to expect it really I don't think because we because Don Potter it's a very insular world you have to film so that you just basically you know you go into work every day there's a big perimeter fence around the studios we are the only film at leaves done so normally you'd have interaction between different crews and things because it looks very safe doesn't it I always felt that when I visited I felt like those family everyone knew everyone else's names what was lovely for us was dead from my point of view and I speak for I think most of the set in terms of your involvement you you were around a lot at the beginning and early on I'm very very involved in it as you kind of saw that we weren't going massively Oscar that's I would do completely right back completely right early on but was that hard or no it was easy okay and it was a relief right I was I was around a lot earlier on I wanted them to I wanted the great pool to look right I wanted diagonally to look right you know there were details that I saw so clearly in my mind I knew I could I knew I could help I knew I genuinely could help and I could help them make it right for the readers and I felt a huge protectiveness I suppose a loyalty to the readers year once I knew you were running and it was fine it was a relief to say right there are the films and I'm over here with the books and that's fine and I trust these people and I did and I do and that's wonderful and you know I think and I have to say that it was inevitably you had to depart from the strict storyline of the books the books are simply too long to make into very faithful films and I can think of many places where it's worked just beautifully and some things are just more filmic and some things are more inherently novelistic so I I was always accepting about it didn't have to be a word the word transcription of my own although some fans are that yes I mean I do I do that's gonna kind of no you're not which is wonderful but I do I do sometimes think that you know if we did make a six-hour Harry Potter film there would be would be an audience and they would be still be complaining that there were things that were wrong and they would want the director's cut let's not even go down that route so is there anything doing other things you know being cut out and things is there anything that we've cut that you were once you know a couple of things maybe that you were upset about that you thought could have been and there's there anything that we put in that maybe weren't in the books that you thought you know cuz I always remembered there was I remember some about Alfonso and the Dementors know I remember exactly what it was with Alfonso there was a well first of all that it on the Dementor point I thought he did those beaut beautifully beautifully and I loved enough the fact that they've really created that visceral dislike I loved what he did the Dementors and what it was it was there was something in the script that Alfonso Alfonso I really wanted to get music into the film and he was that he put the choir in which I loved but at one point he had this rather bizarre scene where I think Flitwick was conducting and there was this there were miniature people in an orchestra inside something and I just see this is my geekiness I sit him but why I know it's visually exciting yeah but part of what I think fans really enjoyed about the literary world was there was a logic that underpinned it there was there was always a logic to the magic however strange it became and I know it's intriguing to go through the mouth of whatever it was and you see these little people but why have they done it for you to film it that's just what it feels like you know normally with the magic there is a point so we had a bit of discussion yeah okay sometimes I would dig my heels in on the funniest things though you know I'd be saying yeah change the costume that's no problem yeah I don't mind if that happens in that city instead of that city and then all of a sudden I said but they wouldn't do that spell you why would they do that there so I think sometimes I confused people but I've also remembered right back into the beginning when you were cast I remember David Heyman holding me up and saying we've tried green contact lenses we can digitally alter his eye colour and post-production how important is it that his eyes are green valor will thank you for and I said the only really important thing is that his eyes look like his mother's eyes so if you're casting Lily there needs to be a resemblance but they don't absolutely have to be green yeah I know contact lenses all for your contact lenses there is a very small percentage of people apparently who have a very extremely extreme reaction yeah to contact lenses and I was one of them no toe boring is 10 years ago it's really fine yeah but there was also the other thing that we didn't think was a particularly good sign early on was about the green eyes went down so badly but then but then off I came up in these terrible spots after about a week and like really like you know then in my teen years did get bad acne but I was 11 at the time like you had bad acne there is that great maker that was great makeup and some vision around four years saying it's incredible none of them ever even got spots we don't you know I promise you I kept saying how unlikely is that that we managed to cast three kids who go through adolescent on-street adolescence on screen they was her perfect skin I think Roopa was the luckiest three of us the Ruppert didn't have much but put me and Emma well particularly myself that got very very spotty but in that you it was brilliant because we put the glasses on eventually we realized that I was allergic to them I've actually learned it to the hypothesis because I had these two rings of whiteheads and spots had come up around where I and took us about a week to realize that it was actually the glasses baby it was lucky neither of us believe in science isn't exactly we don't believe in omens but I also like that that you sort of people selectively believe in omens so we probably just disregard that one exactly you were meant I remember my first day was quite scary because I had I looked on the call sheet and it just said me Emma Rupert and robbie coltrane because actually we were shooting the last scene to film a burpee yes it's wonderful David Heyman said to me if there's one actor that you really want for one of the parts and I said Robbie for Hagrid and I kept just kept saying it I just kept saying it and they they talked about other people and yeah that was a bit of a deal-breaker for me um while we're on the topic of the other actors um Alan Rickman and I've my relationship with Alan since the fifth film has changed totally and one that you know once because on the fifth film I found him very very intimidating and he's a scary scary before before you sort of it and then I went and did Equus and then we we went out for dinner afterwards and suddenly I found that Ali's actually Hillary really funny and self-deprecating and kind of wonderful company and and and who also was so supportive of me whenever I was going on stage at one point he cut short his holiday and I think in Canada to come back early and see the show so he could talk to me he's amazing like he does things like and but how much did he know originally because there was always been this thing over yeah Alan really makes me love and right it's he it's absolutely true I told really early on that he that Snape had being in love with Lily that's why he hated James that's why he projected this this amount of dislike onto Harry so he knew that I don't wanna and I heard you told me yeah that he'd been sailing in I don't know whether it was more than one scene but you told me that he'd said I just don't think it's Nate would do that yeah give him what I know yeah if you camera angles not good enough now I really feel at this point snake would be center stage in the good life because of what I know so they do remember we were talking about I said well let's just pretend I told you loads of stuff so anytime they try and make you but you wouldn't you wouldn't go for it I didn't very simple tough yeah we're trying to get me in the other day they're all trying to get me to it to get him pissy about stuff because I won't go home only I still know gone up to the crew pressures yet it was funny about sort of turning things because people used to say to me all the time have you told the actors have you told the actors were I think we want to tonight you didn't want to know and I don't think anyone really believed that but I think partly I know that you started winding people up and saying that I have told you stuff but that was on set I mean among the cast wasn't it and then you got more than you bargained for because then you got a taste of what it's like to be me tell about everyone coming up I don't say yet to pass all I'm really and that kind of admit that it because they show that he'd know nothing or at all it was the one night you came as her Equus was also the night summary showing how to stay an owl on to stage said to me that's the only time that's happened I saw when I threw it yes I'm sorry about that and afterwards I remember I turned around to you and said do I die God asked go on do I die and you very cryptically turn to sort of paused for a moment I don't get a death see you get a death scene which was sort and I saw you TT even you yeah he said hmm yeah I bet at that point I was kinda like okay I sort of vaguely have somewhat it was good I kneel my husband after except what did dad ask you when he Lenten Lenten to you I said you asked if he's gonna die what did you tell him us telling you so did Neil not even know really but so when cuz I remember hearing a story at one point about you know you killing off character and becoming very upset about it and would you not be able to talk to about that kind of stuff I think I told him in advance of Dumbledore but he didn't know whether Harry was gonna make it no one you really you really were living with that wait tent it's funny cuz Matthew I remember seeing Matthew at the premiere for his brilliance in the Eton prayin yeah and there's another example you know they cast what they think is plain-looking kidding me gross up the Beavers cuz rock god and also one of the coolest most hard-working I met him at the premiere for half-blood Prince and I said there's some great stuff for Neville in any way I don't wanna know liven up the conversation but you can normally rely on me and Matt for understatement yeah in the books obviously it's how much was where your schooldays kind of influential on the kind of I went to a comprehensive so all these kids you've inspired to go off to boarding to do certainly wasn't pro boarding school it's simply logistics there is a there's a logic underpinning the world and if you are a part of society who's living in secret and you want to gather together a large number of your children and teach them potentially dangerous and explosive things that could expose the whole society you are going to do that in an isolated place and you probably are going to have to have them board their it was just logistics but of course there is an an appeal to young people there was to me the idea of just being together with young people are being divested of your parents I think that's quite appealing it's much more interesting to write about if you're talking about kids with kids and the authority not being parental figures it just allows the much more leeway so that so that's why it was but it was no kind of a yen to to recreate any sort of 1940s boarding school in in the slightest I know this for a fact and I'm afraid people just have to take my word on this because after all I have met thousands of the kids who've read these books children from virtually every walk of life would like to go to Hogwarts yes absolutely I still would well you know it's a it's an exciting place it's spooky it's misty they get rid of their parents they get to have feasts every day it's in some ways a fantasy it's a dark fantasy because there are things there that are frightening but you could have quite a nice life at Hogwarts as long as you kept your head down weren't friends with and weren't friends with Harry Potter who sells everything he touches move to midsummer don't be friends with Harry yeah because in a way one of the because what I like about Harry's are character is that one of the things that sort of marks him is that has so many of his relationships and so many of his most important moments in his life have been to do with death and you know he's typhoid mary everyone everyone everyone who enters a room with harry is gonna caucus where exactly that it took about an aura of doom yes and that of course that was quite deliberate and he is he is the prism through which I view death in all its many forms of course yes as the books went on and you realized that actually there were suddenly it was getting a mass of adult fanbase as well did you then realize you could gear it more to ward adults and showing that kind of stuff or were you always going to confront kids kind of with that no well it's a it's a very good question because clearly I never went into it expecting to pick up an adult fanbase the way that a way that I did having said that I had said from the very first I said to my first editor barry cunningham i want them to grow up and it will get darker and it will get scarier and i think you can see that happening right up til 4:00 I mean obviously after four things get very scary but I always knew they would because Baltimore's come back so some some very nasty stuff happens so I really went where my pen took me and I bad though it may sound to some people I never really consider my readership in that way I never sat down and thought I just wrote what I wanted to write new things got darker and darker and darker as you know and so peers yeah cuz okay so coming on to Potter how much then yes did you know from the beginning because there's whole this it's almost become part of Ledger legend of hypotony all of it and that like and as these things do the gap Han said the last chapter went from being written to being written being and safer than armed guard always rubbish there always were always rubbish it was never nothing was ever knocked away in that if you let it all or well it was there was a degree of truth I had very early on but not the first day or anything probably within the first year of writing I wrote a sketch for what I thought the final chapter would be so that's true and that but it did change okay because at least one character was alive in that version of the character that subsequently I killed so you know there were a couple of Peter were here who Lupin was supposed to make it and I wasn't didn't know Lupin's one of my saddest Lanza yes me too that was all free too I hated killing them yeah they had to go you've got the chip of ice in the heart of well now here's another thing there's was there ever a chance that one of them may be coz I was convinced in one of the main three had to buy it eventually one of them funnily enough I planned from the start that none of them would die then midway through which I think is a reflection of the fact that I wasn't in a very happy place I said I think you [Laughter] definitely can't have him anymore midway through the book on widow through the series midway through the series yeah but I think in my absolute heart of heart of hearts although I did seriously consider killing Ron really mmm anyway I can tell you it's a real relief to be able to talk about it all it's fantastic it must be lovely actually the truth is I always knew and this city on that I was working towards the point where Hagrid carried Harry alive but supposedly dead out of the forest always I knew where we were always working towards a final battle at Hogwarts I knew that Harry would walk to his death I planned the the ghosts from want of a better word coming back that they would walk with him into the forest we would all believe he was walking to his death and he would emerge in Hagrid and so that's what always kept Hagrid safe because all because Hagrid actually would have been a natural to kill in some ways but because I always cleave to this mental image of Hagrid being the one carrying Harry out and that that was so perfect for me because it was Hagrid who came and took him into the world and then Hagrid who would bring him back and and the onlookers would believe he was dead you know and and just the physically Hagrid being so big and fatherly and Harry being limp in his arm so that's where we were always going that's amazing it's interesting at something like that image actually kept Hagrid safe I like that phrase I agree with never in danger and as I say Lupin when I first created Lupin I had no intention of killing him and then it it was sort of born in on upon me that Lupin had to die which is awful yeah we got so that's the hot I knew we had to go and the reason he had to go was what do you ultimately I mean in the final book you're looking at a war aren't you and what is what what's errific about war well one of the horrific things is leaving children fatherless motherless and so on and I I just came to a point where I thought I'm going to have to show that again and the most powerful way of showing that is to kill parents that we know and to leave another so another baby boys orphaned you know it happens in the first war and Harry was that boy and Nutt happens again but you know I gave him Perry as a godfather and I and I you you hear about him in the epilogue and you know that he's alright in their lives in as much as he can be who's your favorite characters rightful oh well I loved writing for Ron I loved I loved writing dialogue I I miss Dumbledore the most because he came from a I always feel like he came from somewhere back here it felt quite automatic writing when I wrote Dumbledore he was telling me things I needed to hear sometimes I really liked that yeah that's that's amazing yeah I miss him you know it's people watching this there's there is very cynical way to watch there's the way we're talking about these characters if they are real people and people I think just need to understand that for you it's been pretty much 20 years with these characters at this point yeah 20 years you know and for me 10 so it's you do get not just attached to the active season it's notion of them as the principles of those character and a very ongoing relationship with them and thinking about them as though they're real people and just living with them that they're in your life they're in your life the way real people are yeah well I was going to ask about I do feel I have some duty on a personal level as well because I've always had my own suspicions about this Dumbledore being gay double dual paned gay yeah well I can start something that would just tone help for the American press to get them stirred up a bit no it did leave you mean very funny yeah I found people's reaction to that really interesting and I'll tell you why I by the time that I said that I had been working on these characters for 17 years now not many writers have ever been with the same set of characters for that long so I I feel I can sort of speak for all of us who have and say it becomes a very intense experience and inevitably you are going to know things about characters and I'm characters in the plural that are not in some cases will be relevant and you'll think I'm here yet this is the moment that that's becomes relevant and I will say that or show that for example feza McGonagall I had a whole history worked out for her but I think I thought at some point would become relevant that she'd had a love affair with a muggle on it that she'd had this quite tortured past and she ended up being this celibate two elderly teacher never became relevant never happened and as time went on and I got to know Dumbledore and I but this is before the publication of Philosopher's Stone so bear in mind at this point I've been with him for seven years I knew he was gay I just knew he was gay and to me it was not a big deal this is a very old man who has a very terrible job to do and his gayness is not really he's not really relevant very relevant to him as a character because I always saw him as a very lonely character and I think that there is in fact a hint of it in seven because the relationship he has with Grindelwald he fell very hard for this boy as one or three trusting of this good-looking young man when he shows up I don't you think it was it was perfect that Dumbledore who is always the great champion of Harry love will save us luck here's one great experience of love was utterly tragic it was with someone who was dangerous and demonic yeah and so you know and and created absolute havoc in the world and created havoc for him so that was my idea of Dumbledore's tragic backstory now I liked leaving it open so that perhaps a more worldly reader would see that there was that that may have been in that relationship and perhaps her nine-year-old would think he made a great friend and he trusted him because you know so I was okay with that through all of us but in the context of how I was writing about him in other words he's giving up clearly he is he's John the Baptist to Harry's Christ his knees the all he's the nearly ran man the man who nearly could have had the Hallows but he was too power hungry that was what was interesting to me about Dumbledore so he's used in the book clearly as he's a bountiful worldly wisdom and he teaches Harry what he needs to teach Harry because he recognizes that Harry is going to be he is going to be the one or or Galahad to Lancelot or whatever you like he's the he's the floor he's the more flawed one he was the all he was the nearly ran that to me was what was interesting about Dumbledore do you remember in the first draft of the script for HUF la Prince right Herot when Harry's at the station and Dumbledore comes to another station and in an early draft of that script Dumbledore said to Harry and he said I remember a young woman with eyes of flushing whatever raven head and I read this I scribbled on my copy of the script Steve Dumbledore is gay shoved it up the table and Steve oh so that line that's why that line didn't make the film okay it's interesting actually when you if you start to think for a moment not about these characters being characters but if you think about the characters the lives he carries actually have within the books and the fact that to a certain level because they exist in the collective consciousness of a generation they do exist - sir because I always think that's one of the wonderful things about Potter and the Potter fan base is that whereas if you think about the other big costume wearing and all that kind of stuff that goes with it is things like Star Wars and Star Trek but what's interesting is that Potter because it started off as a literary thing has kind of created generation of the same kind of mentality of geeky thoroughness but with a appetite for reading and literature which is kind of amazing it was it was wonderful listen it was just the most wonderful thing and at the last premiere because obviously I'm not meeting readers in vast numbers at the moment because I'm you know finished the books and so to meet them again through the film's is really great I can't deny that it's lovely it's really enough before the books even got picked up yeah until you know sitting this hotel room yes what are some of the surreal kind of bizarre I mean where do you start I suppose but me that the last premiere was mental it was meant for wasn't a little it was raining I didn't felt more extreme than any of them had yeah I think that I was in a place of full security in that I felt that the books are finished so the excitement will really draw all yeah was I ever because I got out and it was like aircraft engine noise wasn't it was scary but then more people there felt like it felt like it because there's this one moment where I looked out over one side and there was just these hundreds dessous mobs of people deserting forward lights off and all drenched yeah and if there's ever been a moment when I could have absolutely just formed a dictatorship I think it's likely right could have just said we'll March on the palace and they would have joined me as I've had that feeling in fact the reading that I did to sort of launch Phoenix which was at the Albert Hall was the only alcohol I think it was at the Albert Hall and they had all these graphics behind me was like Nuremberg [Music] who designed this yeah you get these moments where you think right smart you think some of them would oh they've worked obviously luckily I don't have any of those it doesn't have stick tutorial impulses never home but not I mean the only thing you can do yeah is laugh at it and it's so funny I mean it's bizarre I mean when somebody I mean tries to for instance that we you know when somebody once tried to jump into the front seat of the car with us to somebody tried to follow us in afterwards you've got two reactions to that situation you can I have to be terrified and thank old people are gonna try get into my car or you can think that's hilarious that she tries to do that I'm fine now that I'm safe and it's all fine that was quite funny but those those folks don't want people to jump in your car I see yeah that makes me uptight okay sorry see this is the thing is I always get a lot less annoyed by than whoever I'm out with yeah but that's that's also true of me when spooky things have happened to me it's much easier when you're the target I think to think do you know what happen that's fine whereas people around you're completely freaked out and saying you mustn't you must never be alone in a car again yeah exactly did you because you've been subject to sort of internet rumors and stuff the crazy stuff that comes with it does that make him laugh I've got it I've got a kind of top top at least the top four I think Oh tell me the stories about myself yeah I was getting SAS guards to walk my dogs well I was getting ups if you've got to do you have actually got dicey wouldn't surprise me exactly no no god my dogs are quite famous hey my dogs my dogs get as many presents as I do no idea I've clearly been out for loop no no no not me they're not featured but they're do people know their names on the internet and cankle I mentioned the mountain in an interview I was having for a while I was having a special Bria Bria beer brewed in a monastery in Belgium by a Belgian monk I don't drink you had your own personal monk I don't yeah and SAS dog walkers when I said Oh Barnaby nothing there was one that I've grown I think about eight inches in about six weeks or something that would be extremely worrying which is anybody who meets me can tell my there's not happened and and but the the one of my favorite ones was the rumored that I was going to be having a statue made of myself for my living go I think they obviously think I live sort of like some Roman Emperor Caligula just building statues to myself everywhere around here dotting them round the studio chocolate I might just have himself encased in it eat as well that would be quite good I enjoy doing that I was I will just give you a quick list of what is the Grint menagerie at the moment in terms of cars I think he's got or he's just sold ice cream van still still got a three man release to think of him over craft now as well off a comic raft and we had a bright orange Range Rover with blacked-out windows and I said to and he said I'm selling out I said why did the hosta color assumably why voss it the first place bass but and he's got and he's now going like amazing pets and he's got what llamas and peacocks and Naumann basically it has done you know with his money what the rest of us would have done with our money when what we said we'd all do when we were seven you know it just has my brilliant a house I'm really probably always make jokes about rip it up because we always assume he is living the dream and we always say gets out of bed just into the water flume down to the breakfast table travels around his house before before um one of my favorite moments right in a bizarre way because you know how when you sort of offend some people you know you must be doing something right well there was my favorite one of my favorite photos from Potter was I think I think it made the cover of like The Times or some you know problem big property newspaper and it was a huge bonfire on some states in America I think and it was somebody throat was thrown a calendar and through the air smiling was Rupert grints face being tossed into the flames it was one of the and it was and it was one of the abiding images that I've always it's that much funnier that it was Rupert it was lovely but does that bother you or don't think no no it's never bothered me because I felt that the crows particularly criticisms yeah well after they misguided I have no track at all with those those kind of views so if they want to burn my books feel free yeah buzu me they're gonna have to buy copies together well you know even that didn't particularly bother me I you know I have occasionally come face to face with people like that really they can be quite aggressive yeah I remember on one but one of my book tours we had we have plainclothes police checking the place out put bombs before because there have been a bomb threat yeah so it was it was real and I said and I look back on that and I I mean that that's largely died down but there's certain states in America where I don't think I'll be particularly welcome though it is what it is you know I remember when I was 11 I was I was at like a party just like oh no don't tell me something that for you didn't go free but somebody like them the mother of somebody who lived in our street you know was saying oh I'm not sure I'm not sure if kids would be able to tell the difference between black magic man it's magic so what's the issue it's well you know I I have a real issue with with anyone trying to protect protect children from their own imaginations and I think that a lot of this goes on and if we cannot acknowledge and embrace the fact that we all have a certain degree of darkness within us some more than others perhaps and you know bring it into the light and examine it and talk about it this part of the human condition then I think we will be living in quite a dangerous climate and I think I think that's much more damaging for children I'm you know I think truth and openness of loiters I think are two rainbow exactly exactly danger yeah sometimes it made me sad I remember I went back to my old primary school and that a child had been excluded from the reading he was sitting alone because his parents didn't subjected to my evil influence and I'd that it did that made me feel really sad the opportunities this has afforded me because people in interviews a commonly asked question I get is people say do you think it's gonna hold you back from you know doing other projects and things I actually the chances are I never would have become an actor if I hadn't got this you know from I mean you have said that to me before off-camera but from my point that's the best thing I could hear you know that you feel that it's been a springboard rather than it's been a straightjacket people would never would have got the chance to do Equus or mobile Jack or any of the other side anything like and that's the thing I think that anybody who's career was born out of Potter has to remember that no matter what we do for the rest of our lives it's the chances are that there are things where the opportunities we never would have had in the first place if we hadn't got Potter and we were involved in this extraordinary thing for ten years of filming that was kind of unlike anything else that's ever been done just in terms of the amount of people that are there and the continuity of everybody being I mean are you thinking about how you're gonna feel when it ends because it's been so stable hasn't it always filming in the same place always the same people which was wonderful which is wonderful but equally does it feel strange that you know it's coming or do you not really focus on that oh just recently we've all started thinking about it more because you know what it was a funny that the moment was actually I was talking to a man tonight and Lisa Tomlin who do hair and makeup on podium and has done my makeup every day for ten years and is an amazing makeup artists do you remember that day I came to visit a set and she painted you know you looked really beaten up my mum Rupert and I walk to the rooms if what's happened to you and you said well if you don't know I was already giving you dip at that stage it was like excellent erm but I was talking to them the other day and they were talking about another job that they might have lined up after and it was the first moment of actually it wasn't sadness and it wasn't it was jealousy I was jealous that another actor was gonna get those two because this has done my hair for the on the 6th and 7th film also she was on the second that she's been in and out and so and someone I've come to know very very well as well and so the fact that another actors gonna get there imagine it's really sort of is something it's very peculiar and I mean it's gonna be old also because you know I've worked in a way with the crew on Potter in such a way that I'm I actually feel much closer to the crew than I do to a lot the cast now I can say I really understand that I think a lot of people who certainly includes me before I became involved with these films but people wouldn't maybe understand just how important the crew are they every day day in day out they're the people you're seeing and working with and joking with and I've come to understand that too because I've kind of worked out really particularly this film that if that success on a film set kind of relies upon the ability to concentrate very intensely for very short spaces of time yes the exact reverse of writing right yeah then you have to learn to switch off in the moments that you can because you can't keep yourself with that level of a nose all day although I am quite hyper you know my mom and dad have often said to me they did get lucky when they got somebody with the kind of boundless energy you do have and you always have had yes it's been so apparent but even when you're quite small it was like you were four espressos ahead of everyone else which is why I don't drink coffee yes he doesn't imagine me after that no because I remember the first day we met I think was when you came in and all the kids were there right yeah yeah because he was yeah yes he did he showed my child then very young how to use it and I was always sort of I always had a real soft spot for Tom after that and it was so ironic that we have this this arch baddie and he's about the nicest I mean we keep saying everyone's nice but the fact is they are there they were met there were never any brats there were never there was never anyone objectionable they were all just really nice people but Tom Mison I've got such a sweetheart he's a bit older than the rest of us as well it was when he was younger and had done a bit more work yeah he'd done quite yeah and in his demeanour offset that showed I think he was quite comfortable with being there wasn't it yeah but yeh was so sweet I do remember that day all of you in the canteen looking around it was amazing I particular I remember and Devon who plays Sheamus very vividly from that day because he really looks like I imagined oh really he was one of the ones they'd really cast someone I know is the way I'd imagine the other person would definite about because who I do think is sort of even though you notice what he does he is the unsung hero of these films Stewart Craig Oh God because his sets genius I mean that's just genius yes yeah the detail of everything that's cuz that's cuz I think that's what has allowed us to survive as a successful franchise in because you know cuz we sort of have cuz we started off at the same time as a whole host of other kids fantasy see films are sort of fun but the reason I think we've managed to do so well and sustained and the story right to the end and keep people interested is largely down to I think the sets and the fact that the detail goes into the world is suffering again as someone who's not you know being involved in the film business and came to it entirely new to be able to walk into the Gryffindor common room and pick up the comics and read them it's so real it's so fabulous kids who visit the set are blown away by it aren't they that they can walk into all of these rooms and play with all these things we've now lost to Gryffindor common room I don't know is it gone so I thought it was my favorite stare where it is anymore I thought I think it may be sport I don't use because it was everyone's favorite are these been set up in someone's back gone oh no that's not the case you did tell me everyone's going around putting dibs on various props yeah well we don't mean I've I've really I'm really eyeing up my glasses that's what I want I want and I don't want you want you see I think I don't want my mom see the thing is the wand for me is a less constant thing because it changed after the second film it's a different one but okay and because after enough once's words he said that he thought the other one looked a little too smooth and like it was from Ikea and so he gave me this sort of stick you know which was which was great but all that shopping in change with ones in the last book we are done you can you please we are so struggling on this set I have to say I will get my audience mums who does this really belong to AIDS and it's because we got and then try to explain it then - Rafe when Rafe comes on as Baltimore and I'm kind of looking him in as Baltimore my company's asking me about other ones I'm completely panicking going I've really got to find the most extinct way I can explain this to you in two minutes but I don't know how that's possible because I'm a Meijer to reread the end of 7 a new time I storm at the end of 7 the epilogue the epilogue change went because some people really I like gala but some people will hate it yeah a version of it what was real literally written 17 years previously to the book a verse not it was written but as I said to you earlier you know some people were in there who didn't turn up in the final cut and so on yes I didn't I wanted to give a snapshot I think what a lot of people felt about the tone of the epilogue was so this is it so it's over so he's not a hero anymore he's a sort of middle aged man seeing it it felt like a letdown but you I have said this before for me absolute heroism is rebuilding after that kind of trauma and I could think of nothing more noble than that he's he's acting what Dumbledore preached but didn't live Cece Dumbledore preached these are the values that see us through that survive laugh and those sort of human bonds Harry's actually living in so he was always the guy to me who had it thrust upon him here and that was supposed to be epitomized to go back to the Mons and the fact that he had the chance to have his finger on the nuclear button as it were he had the chance to own this this most powerful what and he said no one want that one want that one I want my own and I want to break the chain and going back to what was the moment like when you I summon how solid is the end of writing the book I mean do you give it in and then it's done or lashes print this time it was pretty it felt it felt really solid I mean I had editing to go through but it was after it was published that it really hit me now I had been promised an awful thing to say but in some senses it was like knowing someone is going to die I had a long time to prepare I always said seven books that's it that's what I planned from the beginning but even so it hit me like a train on my birthday which was the same month as publication which is Harry's birthday but she hasn't particularly thinking about that I would I cried as I've not cried since my mother died honestly yeah it really hit me and I I mean my husband was why what's wrong what's wrong you know and I I so just can't go there anymore can't go there anymore and it you know it been a place I could escape to for 17 years and I and I knew the door had closed and it was um yeah that but it was very cathartic and after that day was passed it became I became much lighter and I and there were aspects you know of it they're deliberating obviously I'm now I feel I've done that job and that's always a girl revealing I thank you Dad you know that's that's done but yeah it was tough it was tough I'm not gonna pretend it wasn't I could I cared so much about the characters I loved writing the books most of the time I loved writing the books yes but you tell me how you're feeling about the end of it because not I mean there's some I feel like a therapist it's gonna be it's gonna be very it's clearly very strange and very upsetting and but it's the little things that you'll miss most I mean and also it's the the fact that you know I mean I'll walk into that studio for one day over the next few months and sit down in front of that makeup mirror and it'll be the last time did I film that day because then I'm going and hopefully doing other things and as you say it will be liberating because I'll no longer have to you know when I get sent an amazing script going so I'm not available for the next seven years you know I mean but so I'm I'm very excited about the opportunity to just leave that sort of actor's life of just getting a job and going off and doing and you know and those kind of things I'm very excited about but but it's also there's an awareness that it'll never be the same again that I'll never have that period time and also it's not just it's I mean I look at this more you know in a in terms of a landmark more than my 18th birthday was this is me becoming an adult now this is that wasn't me that is me leaving the nest now you know but no it's been it's been a good 10 years for me so thank you very much ah damn that's good to hear get one [Music] you

Channel: HarryPotterAdmirer

Views: 9,835,498

Rating: 4.9592404 out of 5

Keywords: A Conversation between J K Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter, Harry Potter Literary Series, Harry Potter Film Series, J K Rowling, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, A Conversation with Daniel Radcliffe and J.K. Rowling, Interview daniel radcliffe and Jk Rowling, Daniel Racliffe and Jk Rowling, A Conversation with Jk Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe, Interview Jk rowling, Interview Daniel Radcliffe, Between, conversation between jk rowling and daniel radcliffe

Id: 7BdVHWz1DPU

Length: 53min 3sec (3183 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 22 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

How do you cast 11 year olds who are just the right amount of geeky for a film franchise projected to last 10 years?

[u/jkL0Ling]

I also bet they weren't expecting Daniel Radcliffe to end up being the shortest of the three

[u/[deleted]]

I liked her response to the question asking if she was surprised that casting went with good looking people... 'I'm not an idiot'.

[u/[deleted]]

Weirdly, I remember when the first movie came out, I told some friends that I thought Daniel Radcliffe was "soooooo hot." (DISCLAIMER: We were all 11 years old so he was our age) They all made fun of me and told me that he looked like a nerd.

Now, thanks to the kinds of things he likes performing in, I've seen photos of his bare ass.

Definitely hot.

[u/[deleted]]

Then theres Luna, who is the best cast character in cinema history.

[u/E_Chihuahuensis]

What? I mean, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint are good-looking but they’re no runway models. Normal-looking actors are pretty much the norm in British films/commercials anyways aren’t they?

[u/hc84]

She was only talking about Hermione, but did not want the others to feel like shit, so included them.

[u/HillaryBoobPhD]

“No, they don’t have to be green. The only really important thing is that his eyes resemble Lily’s”

LOL

[u/Shalabadoo]

One of the best decisions that was controversial was Curaons decision to change them into regular clothes rather than wizard robes all the time, which I feel translated very well and was probably a factor in the whole "damn they're all hot now" thing. I thought it made it seem more realistic