This in an interview from G4’s Attack of the Show that I’ve never seen before, although it looks like it was conducted during the Premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Tom appears at minute 1:48.
Have you seen this before?
During an interview with MTV, Tom Felton extols the virtues of the various Harry Potter franchise directors. Chris Columbus, he says, was perfect when they were young children, to help them get started. And he describes Alfonso Cuarón was very artistic and fun. But Tom names current director David Yates as his favorite Harry Potter director.
An excerpt:
“David Yates, who we’ve been working with for the last few years, he’s been by far my personal favorite,” Felton told MTV News. “I get on with him like a house on fire. I think he’s a genius at what he does.”
That’s not to say the British actor doesn’t have fond memories of earlier directors. Felton praised both Chris Columbus, who helmed the first two flicks, and “Prisoner of Azkaban” director Alfonso Cuarón.
“Chris Columbus was a fantastically fun guy to work with, especially with kids because we didn’t know what we were doing and he was a brilliant person to try to get us into it and for it to remain fun, which is essential,” Felton said.
He added, “Alfonso obviously had a very artistic view of it and a lot of fun with him.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Michelle Kung interviews Tom Felton in their SpeakEasy page. In it, Tom talks about the horrific pictures he’s seen of Ron’s Horcrux Hallucination. Or does he? Check out the interview and find out!
Here’s a segment of the interview:
Speakeasy: What was the last scene you shot before coming to New York?
Tom Felton: I can’t reveal too much, or I’ll get myself in trouble, but I can say that we’ve been shooting some of the very last scenes from the very last film. Though we’re not going to be able to see it for another two years, which is crazy. But it’s very moving, because this is what we’ve been working toward for the last 10 years. Daniel [Radcliffe] is the figurehead of the series, so when we see him battered and abused and scarred [while in character] on set, you get all emotional.
In the final scenes, you get to work with more of the adult cast, which must be a nice change of pace — as well as a high-end acting workshop.
Definitely. I was always one of the 800 kids floating around, and now I get to work more with the big guns, if you will. They’re all incredibly nice people. Jason Isaacs, who plays my dad [Lucius Malfoy], is especially great. I wouldn’t go up to Ralph Fiennes [who plays Lord Voldemort] and ask, ‘How do you cry?’. But Jason I feel quite comfortable asking, ‘how do you do this, and how do you do that?’. And he would never take offense if one were to go, ‘Jason, just shut up.’ The most helpful thing he’s taught me is to speak up, because when you’re surrounded by these great actors, you tend to be the quiet voice when everyone is talking, and he taught me to stand up for myself.
On “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” Jim Broadbent joined the cast and very oddly, he played my dad in my first movie when I was 7. Because I haven’t seen him in 10 years, I was convinced he wouldn’t remember me, but from the first moment he saw me, he called my by my character’s name from that first film. I’m a massive fan of his. He’s probably one of the most underrated actors, certainly in the U.K.
Speaking of “Half-Blood Prince,” you’re featured quite a bit in the extras for the newly released DVD and Blu-Ray discs. Were you guys consciously shooting extra bits during the film’s production expressly for the DVD?
In previous years, without knocking them too much, [the DVD producers] kind of just threw the extra bits they couldn’t use from the movie onto the extras. This time, because they knew the Blu-ray was going to be able to hold a lot more content, the cast and the publicity team literally sat down and talked about what we would be willing to do and what we’d be happy to do, so that’s where ideas like the “Quickfire Questioning” came from. It was really cool for us, because they gave us [actors] a camera crew each for a day, and we all went to a different departments that we had never gone to. Because obviously, the actors get a lot of praise, but there are all these amazing people building set and making wands that, many of whom, we’d never even met. So it was fascinating to talk to them [for the DVD featurettes] and explain what they do to the audience.
Fans were disappointed when Warner Bros pushed the original theatrical release date of “Half-Blood Prince” back from fall 2008 to summer 2009. They studio isn’t going to pull a fast one with the release dates for parts one and two of “Deathly Hallows,” are they?
I was let down as well [at the time]; I had worked on it for 12 months and then I was told I’d have to have another 7 months? I was frustrated, but it all worked out in the end, because it gave us a chance to enjoy the film more when it came out. The next few years are quite strongly structured. The only reason they moved that was because Warner Bros was having a record year [in 2008] with the Batman film’s success. You can’t argue with the finances; they know what they’re doing.
Earlier this morning, Tom Felton appeared on New York’s CW11 Morning Show. Tom discusses Draco’s crummy up-bringing (sorry, Lucius – I know you’re a big Feltbeats fan), the Wizarding World theme par and how his character progresses into the next film. He always admits that his favorite Potter scene ever is the Harry/Draco dueling scene in Chamber of Secrets!
