Monday, November 15, 2010
Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
From left to right, British actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint pose for the photographers as they attend the world premiere of their latest film' Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows', at a cinema in central London, Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
Los Angeles Times
WATFORD, England
There was a break in the action — the cast and crew of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” were milling about waiting for the next setup on a summer day here in 2009 — and Daniel Radcliffe sat back in his seat and admired the life of a fugitive. “Everybody is after us,” the actor said of his on-screen persona, Harry Potter, and his partners in magic. “We’re to the point in the story where it’s a lot of action and we’re on the run. And that’s brilliant.”
When Part 1 of the two-part “Harry Potter” franchise finale reaches theaters Friday, it will do so without one of the series’ signature characters. But the missing star is not a wizard, Muggle, goblin or troll — it’s a place. The seventh film is the first without any notable screen time spent inside the stone corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the castle that has become synonymous with the magical epic.
The absence of the ancient academy from the seventh movie, according to producer David Heyman, informs the texture and rhythm of the franchise’s penultimate installment. The film is very much a road-trip adventure with the three main characters — played by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson — in fugitive mode and preparing for the final showdown with Lord Voldemort, portrayed with reptilian rasp by Ralph Fiennes.
“It gives this film a very different feel to be away from Hogwarts,” Heyman said. “The main characters — Harry, Ron and Hermione — are on the run and, yes, they do go to some magical places, like the Ministry of Magic, but a lot of the film is set in a quite naturalistic setting, and that makes it feel very real and very human. There’s plenty of magic, of course, but it’s set against a very real context.
“It feels real, gritty at times and beautiful at other times.”
Radcliffe said treading past the stony floors of the Hogwarts set in Watford energized the cast during the production of the seventh and eighth films, which were made together in a shoot that began in February 2009 and did not wrap until mid-June of this year.
“This movie just looks different than the other ones. We’ve spent so much time at Hogwarts that it makes it fresh to go somewhere new on screen.”