Harry Potter: December 2009

Earlier today, a screening for the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince BD-Live community chat with Daniel Radcliffe and producer David Barron, hosted by TVOKids' The Space head Mark Sykes, took place in Toronto, Canada. SnitchSeeker member SanaBanana attended the screening on behalf of the site, and gave a brief synopsis of her experience there.

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My day started when I reached Manuel Life Centre – the centre where the screening was taking place. I asked inane questions until I finally reached my destination – the Cineplex Varsity Theatre. Right away, I was attended to by the hired illusionist. He made my head spin but entertained me until it was my turn with the green screen.

The full audio and breakdown of the chat can be heard and read here:

In the green screen activity, you were photographed only to be put into the Harry Potter poster with Michael Gambon and Daniel Radcliffe. Posing heroically, I imagined I really was on the cliff with two of my favourite characters.

After the green screen activity, came the waiting. While waiting to be seated, the people helping out with the event gave out authentic Harry Potter clocks and hats.

The actual virtual interaction with Dan and David was fantastic. Unfortunately, the audio was not working, so we were only able to read the text. Nonetheless, the questions and answers provided a fantastic insight into the minds of two brilliant men.
The BD-Live screening for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has now begun. Producer David Barron (replacing director David Yates) and Daniel Radcliffe will be answering fan questions via audio-link during a screening of the sixth film. We will be updating this post throughout the screening with all the questions being asked of Dan and David, so keep refreshing for new information.

For those watching the BD-Live event, enjoy!

For those who cannot watch the viewing today, Warner Bros has announced that the BD-Live screening will be shown on BD-Live's site in a few weeks. We will update with that as it is released.

David Yates has come down with "a terrible bout of flu", which is why he could not make today's screening.

• Dan said that he and Harry are alike with their curiosity, love of friends, etc. He also states that Harry hasn't taken any of Dan's characteristics from playing the character, but has learned from the experience of making the series and meeting all sorts of people (from set).
• During the Slughorn home's scene, Dan and David voice how good of a scene it is in the fact that it introduces the world of magic.
• On David Yates' view on making the films: Dan said that Yates has the ability to see the entire film just from one still.
• Dan mentioned a rule he and Rupert shared, in that if they have a birthday and aren't on set for it, they won't receive a present.
• On Alan Rickman, David said he loved his eyebrows, while Dan loves his dry sense of humour.
• Dan loved Lupin and Lockhart as Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers and even noted that Kenneth Branagh gave him tutoring lessons on Twelfth Night.
• On Bellatrix: Dan thinks Bella is childlike and also evil; David said that you look in her eyes and she feels a little bit out of control. Dan stated that he's become a bit like Helena Bonham Carter's personal assistant on the set of Deathly Hallows, in that he's constantly picking up after her.
• Dan and David were gushing over the quality of the Half-Blood Prince Blu-ray (it was the first time Dan used it). Dan noted that Emma's image on Blu-ray is her only competition in terms of beauty.
• Tom Felton began filming Deathly Hallows at the end of the summer; he and Dan became good friends through Tom's girlfriend, Jade, who is one of Dan's best friends.
• On their favourite CGI sequences in the Harry Potter series: David said it was the sixth movie's Inferi and cave set. Dan said one of his favourite scenes to film was the dragon chase in Goblet of Fire.
• Dan was asked if he would consider joining Twitter, but he said no. However, he does like the idea of it and interacting with fans. He said that being able to convey a thought in 140 characters or less would be a challenge for him.
• Dan and David spoke about the tiles in Tom Riddle's orphanage, noting that they are similar to those used for the Ministry of Magic atrium.
• Choosing between Slughorn and Snape as a better Potions Master, they said that since Slughorn taught Snape, he would be better; Dan noted Harry's bias against Snape, and that he would prefer Slughorn more.
• Dan noted that while Slughorn and Ron are rather outgoing characters on-screen, Jim Broadbent and Rupert Grint, respectively, are shy off-screen.
• They both spoke about Hero Fiennes, who played young Tom Riddle in Half-Blood Prince, and as he is Ralph Fiennes nephew, he was "a young Voldemort in training."
• For the birds used in the Vanishing Cabinet Draco uses in the Room of Requirement in Half-Blood Prince, Dan said it took him a few readings to figure out its significance.
• On Quidditch and flying on a broom, Dan said that no matter what, whether flying over London or past dragons, the filming is exactly the same on the green-screen G-stage, and the pain is all the same. The pitch is just all CGI, so no signifigance there.
• On Deathly Hallows filming, Barron said that filming will end around late-spring early-summer, then there's the dubbing stage, and post-production. They will be doing work on it for another year, at least. There are plans for Leavesden after the movies are done.
• Butterbeer tastes like J-20 with froth on it, according to Dan. They both mention that real Butterbeer will be sold at the Harry Potter theme park next year (Barron said it tasted very nice).
• Dan said that he does have a say in Harry's costuming, in that his clothes should "look good, but look forgettable," given his origins. As the movies go on, the kids are seen less and less in their Hogwarts robes.
• Dan said that his stage work in Equus has made him more confident as an actor, both on stage and screen, especially given how exposed he was in front of thousands of people live.
• On a future in directing, Dan said it'd be a long way away and that he still has a great deal to learn before considering helming a project.
• On wearing Muggle clothes in the series, as they got older, it paralleled to the fact that Muggle students around 16-17 in schools wear regular clothes and not uniforms. Plus, it shows them as more adult-like, according to Dan.
• David Barron said he considered cutting the egg shot Ron has to look at before his Quidditch match, thinking it didn't play. Yates took it out once, realised it didn't work, and then put it back in. For the Great Hall scene, Dan noted he loved the colours in the scenes (the Gryffindor robes), and Luna blinking lion's hat. They give love to Evanna because of her artistic merit and what she brings to the character.
• On Ron and Lavender's kiss, Dan said he lost all professionalism that day and teased and joked with Rupert all day. He said that Matthew Lewis teased him on the Order of the Phoenix set about Harry and Cho's kiss, so it was time for revenge.
• Dan lists Rupert's cars: bright-orange Range Rover; ice cream van that was recently repaired and does actually make ice cream; he used to have a mini-cooper with Knight Rider designs; a Chevy pick-up truck that never works (which he brings onto the set to show off); and a hovercraft. He said that Rupert wouldn't be the kind of person to show off what he bought, and would just mention it in passing. David also got night-goggles for Rupert so he can ride on his hovercraft in the dark.
• Dan and David's favourite Weasley is Ron, though they are fond of the entire lot.
• On British actors they couldn't get into the films and wanted to, they list: Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Daniel Craig, Juliet Stevenson, Ricky Gervais.
• They said that the Burrow set is "cramped and crooked."
• Dan said that the easiest scenes to film are action sequences, because he can throw himself into it. During the Burrow scene when Harry sees the fire and runs after Bellatrix, Dan noted that it was "terrible parenting," and wondered why the adults didn't stop Harry or Ginny from running off.
• Dan and David confirmed that the five actors - Dan Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Bonnie Wright, Emma Watson, and Tom Felton - will play their adult selves in the epilogue.
• The pair said that their favourite villain in the series is Voldemort, of course, the embodiment of evil.
• Dan mentioned that when he found out Richard Harris, the original actor who played Albus Dumbeldore, died, he just cried and cried. He also remembered having rather enjoyed filming the scenes with Fawkes in Dumbledore's office from Chamber of Secrets, because it kept speaking back to him.
• Dan's favourite set is the Ministry of Magic atrium; David's is the Gryffindor common room for its warmth and detail.
• Between Colin Creevey and Lavender Brown on who would be more annoying, Dan and David said that Colin's sweet, but Lavender's a bit irritating.
• On Harry using Felix Felicis, Dan said he was over-acting a bit, and that Harry was using a different bit of logic there.
• Dan on the Sectumsempra scene was like he and Tom "playing cowboys and Indians."
• Dan said that he's broken about seven wands on set; Devon Murray about eight; but David Thewlis holds the record at about 12.
• Dan said he'd be put into Hufflepuff ("nice, but clueless"), but really they'd like to be in Gryffindor, since they know it the best.
• David's favourite plant are the mandrakes; Dan's is the Devil's Snare, which he found cool, but not something to get caught in.
• David pointed out that if Hagrid hadn't been a lonely outsider like Harry, he wouldn't have befriended Aragog, and from that slippery slope, he would not have attended the funeral, and not have gotten the memory from Slughorn (therefore never knowing the true reason behind Voldemort's immortality).
• Of the memories he'd like to keep, Dan said he'd choose his first days of school. Plus, Dan said that all the things he could recall, he already remembered, so he wouldn't have to keep them.
• Dan said that he was the one who told Gary Oldman that Sirius died on the set of Prisoner of Azkaban in 2003. When Harry mourned Dumbledore's body at the end of Half-Blood Prince, Dan said that Michael kept pulling faces to distract him.
• On why Harry looks sad all the time: David said that Harry's mostly serious, not sad, and is surrounded by some happiness; Dan notes that with all he's been through, he's got reason to be sad.
• Compared to the month he spent filming the Second Task underwater for Goblet of Fire, Dan was only underwater for a few days for the Half-Blood Prince cave sequences. As for the liquid Dumbledore drinks in the cave, it is a milky-water (and the froth from Rupert's mouth when Ron is being poisoned is actually egg white).
• On learning to cry on screen, Kenneth Branagh (Lockhart) said that he could use a tear-stick (an eye irritant) to make it look like you're crying (around his eyes), rather than really getting into the mood.
• Comparing Harry's reactions to Sirius and Dumbledore, David and Dan said that with Dumbledore, Harry was a bystander and could not scream out in agony the way he had with Sirius's death. With Sirius's death, Harry was in the midst of the fight, so his reaction was quite different.
• Dan mentioned that Michael Gambon had not yet begun filming scenes for Deathly Hallows (and was admonished by David for letting that information slip).
• David and Dan were notified about the Academy Awards' Best Film category being extended to 10 nominees, and if Half-Blood Prince could get a nod. Neither were terribly sure about it, but weren't holding their breath on getting the recognition, either. They would be honoured, but it's not something they automatically expect.
• Dumbledore's funeral will NOT be in Deathly Hallows, even if it wasn't in Half-Blood Prince. It was discussed among producers David Barron and David Heyman and screenwriter Steve Kloves, but they felt it was just too many endings for the film. They tried hard to keep it in, but felt the balance was wrong, according to Barron.
• On Tom Felton's hair dyeing, Dan said that it gets done "more often than he likes." Tom gets a bit more recognition that he likes as a result of it (as does Rupert), but they try to dye it as infrequently as possible.
• When dealing with bad press and rumours, Dan says that he keeps a sense of humour and good head about it, as well as having good people around him.
• Dan says that he'll miss the friends he's made on set and working with the crew in the series after it's done, and hopes to work with them after Harry Potter is over.

That's all for the BD-Live event! Thanks for listening and reading along with us!

UPDATE: Thanks very much to Lauren from DanRadcliffe.com for the full two-and-a-half-hour audio of the BD Live chat with Dan and David, which can be downloaded here (mirror here).

Actor Rupert Grint will be featured as one of his favourite fictional film characters, Napoleon Dynamite, in the next issue of Total Film magazine. Rupert's representatives have confirmed that the issue featuring Rupert will be out this week, on the 17th. The issue will also have various covers, depicting the greatest films of the decade, including Harry Potter.

Rupert's reps explained the reasoning behind the theme of the shoot:

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It was a special themed shoot (scene stealers) celebrating the last decade of the film industry. Many actors took part and were asked to recreate their favourite scene from their favourite film. Rupert chose Napoleon Dynamite as his favourite film from the last 10 years.
Rupert's reason for choosing Napoleon:

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"I was obsessed when it came out. I had the T-shirt and everything."
We will have much more on this, including photos and the interview from Rupert in the magazine, so stay tuned. If anyone can get the next issue of Total Magazine, please feel free to send scans in!

The issue is also set to contain 'first word' on the Deathly Hallows fi A scan of

Rupert's shoot and brief interview is now online and can be seen here, courtesy of RupertGrint.us.