What memories in particular stand out for you all from your first and last days on set?
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Warwick, Tom and Natalia, how about you?
Warwick Davis: My last day was the last day, the official one. I was doing a shot for second unit in the vault as Griphook and I finished and thought, well, that’s me done, but I’ll go to first unit and just say goodbye. Dan, Rupert and Emma were doing a shot where they’re diving over the camera in slow-motion, it was for, you know, when they leave the ministry and they escape by diving into the fireplace.
Then it was called a wrap for the very final time, and it was a bit of a weird moment, nobody really knew what to do. There was no more motivation, because every day obviously when you’d finish there was another day to go but everyone was like, oh.
Tom Felton: It was anti-climactic wasn’t it, on the last day?
WD: Nobody cheered, it was like, right…
TF: That’s your lot everyone, thanks very much, see you.
WD: There were some tears and stuff. It was the end but it wasn’t like a full stop, it was like a comma. The films were done, but were other things to do next.
TF: I had a couple of last days actually, one last day was the Platform 9 ¾ stuff that we did 19 years on with all the make-up, which was very bizarre because it was almost ten years to the month, I think, that we were there as 11-year-olds being put on the train, and now we’re all grown up. But it was a nice way of us to say goodbye to everyone, to Dan and Rupert and Emma.
My actual last day was just a very quick pick-up shot for second unit, a night shot for Dom Fysh, who was the first AD on the second unit, and he gave us a very brief speech and I saluted and off I went before I started blubbing like a five-year-old girl.
Natalia Tena: My first time on set I wasn’t actually filming because I was a new character. They didn’t want to get anything wrong so there was months of going in every day, make-up, hair, make-up, hair and saying to the producer, “No, that’s not quite right”. It was a long process to get right, Luna [Evanna Lynch] had to go through it as well. They didn’t want to make any little mistakes or to anger any of the fans. So I went round the set [mimes jaw dropping] and I couldn’t get over the size of it, it was that sort of [sharp intake of breath], so I wasn’t filming on that day but just on the side lines.
My last day, no one knew it was my last day, not the director. I had been reaching out with Thewlis [David] and it was like, oh okay, is that done? Okay bye. I had no idea it was my last day, I didn’t know it was my last day so I just said “Bye”.
Tom, can I ask you about one particular moment in the final film when Draco crosses the battlements to join the Death Eaters and he hesitates before he goes. What’s your interpretation of that? Is Draco really a Gryffindor at heart?
TF: [laughs] No. Hate to burst that bubble but I don’t think so. I think the nice thing about the book is that she left it to interpretation, it’s not really answered I don’t think, why any of the softer side of the Malfoys do what they do. I like to think of it as because of his mum. I think David Yates explained it as when you hear your Dad’s voice, you’re not really interested, but when you hear your Mum’s you can’t help but go. He’s very close to his mother and very like his mother.
The hug was a weird thing [to Warwick] did you remember that? Voldemort sort of…[mimes an awkward hug].
WD: That was a very cool hug, the way he did it, I noticed it.
TF: He only did it once out of the 50 times we did it, and show that to a UK audience and it’s seen as pure menace, like, what’s he going to do, is he going to [mimes violent stabbing] but in America it was hilarious, like it was a huge joke.
WD: The way his body language was, he did it in a really odd way. The thing about Ralph [Fiennes] was that he never did the same thing twice for a take. As an actor, I tend to try and almost mirror image because I know they’ve got to edit it, but he has the confidence to just… he’d even dance sometimes. You never knew what he was going to do, it was amazing.
TF: Sometimes he’d be halfway through a take and in his head he would just start from the beginning again.
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Have you shared the films with your kids, Warwick?
WD: Absolutely, they were in the last film as well. Annabel was about three when I started on these films and Harrison was born in 2003, so he’s grown up while I’ve been doing this.
Which bit were they in?
WD: In Gringott’s bank, you see a couple of little tiny goblins in the establishing shot of Gringott’s pulling a little cart, they’re the tiniest goblins. Harrison was the shortest goblin with the biggest shoes, literally, if you stood the shoe on end, it was nearly as tall as him, poor guy, I don’t know how he walked. He had skis on!
The Great Hall to them is a bit like Dad’s office really. Annabel had her 13th birthday on set because I had to work. So the producer said to bring Annabel down, we’ll make it special because the Great Hall was filled with people. It was the scene where Snape has just taken over Hogwarts as headmaster and Harry comes back and has a confrontation, so quite a lot of the key cast were in and they all bought out a birthday cake for Annabel and everyone sang Happy Birthday.
Even Alan Rickman?
WD: Seeing Alan singing Happy Birthday was quite an unusual thing to see.
NT: Wow.
TF: That’s a very special thing.
