‘Potter’ cast graduates without child-actor woes

By David Germain

AP Movie Writer

LOS ANGELES

If the young cast of the “Harry Potter” films received report cards for their school days at Hogwarts, they’d all probably earn the notation, “plays well with others.”

Cast as impressionable children in Hollywood’s biggest fantasy franchise, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and their many young co-stars have maneuvered through 11 years of fame — and the temptations it brings — without any whispers of Lindsay Lohan-style meltdowns that can derail child actors.

They’ve grown up smart, humble, polite and professional, eager to balance modest private lives with productive acting careers rather than leap into the party-till-dawn celebrity lifestyle.

The actors and the headmasters of the Warner Bros. franchise say it wasn’t magic that kept the kids on their best behavior. It was the luck of the draw when the youngsters were first cast, good parenting, mindful shepherding that resembled the rigors and care of the finest boarding schools, and a sheltered workplace outside of London, far from Hollywood’s madding crowds.

“It’s very different doing it in England,” said Radcliffe, who was 11 when cast in the title role as the boy wizard for 2001’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and turns 22 the week after the mid-July debut of the final film, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”

“In America, you’re treated as an actor first and a kid second. Here, you’re very much treated as a kid first and an actor second. In fact, you’re not really treated as an actor. You’re treated as a kid on a film set, which is how it should be, because that’s all you are that point. No one’s an actor at 12.”

And with the performers so young, their parents were instrumental in steering the children through busy working lives and the madness of instant celebrity.

“We couldn’t have done it without the family support that’s kept all three of them and the supporting cast all lovely, lovely people,” said David Barron, a producer on most of the “Harry Potter” films. “They’ve got very strong families who kept them really strongly grounded.”

With tens of millions of “Harry Potter” fans to please and billions of dollars at stake, Warner Bros. went to great lengths to protect and nurture the stars through eight films and a decade of hard work.