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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:07 AM
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Labels:
bonnie wright,
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
interview
The first one is from The London Evening Standard with Bonnie Wright. Among other things, she talks about how to survive the Potter set after all these years: 'In a banqueting scene, you must never be filmed actually eating,' she says very seriously. Otherwise you'll have to keep on for the sake of continuity. The food gets cold and stale, and you start to feel really sick.' (Especially if the director is David Yates, notorious for his numerous retakes.) You have to make sure the spoon only goes as far as your lips.' Bonnie has learned such tricks the hard way, having joined the cast to play Ginny Weasley, Ron's little sister, when she was a mere nine years old and had no acting experience whatsoever, barring roles in school plays. Over the past nine years, she has seen her role expand from infant sidekick to leading lady. In the forthcoming film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she and Harry fall for one another, and their relationship proves more durable than his earlier ill-fated fling with Cho Chang.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:00 AM
.
Labels:
EMMA WATSON,
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
HERMIONE GRANGER,
interview
Emma talks about what a typical day on the set is like, and her feelings about the franchise after being involved for so long: On the Potter set, "it takes an hour to get ready every day. They call us at 7.30am." Watson leans forward across the trailer's Formica table to show me the extensions plaited into her backcombed light brown hair to give it Hermione Granger's messy curls. Plus there are fake scars – "They must have rubbed off - I just took a nap" - and plenty of slap to make her lightly freckled skin matt and witchy. The heavy eyebrows are for real, though. Watson is still thankful she was not forced to wear the buck teeth allotted to Hermione in the books. When she put them in, she couldn’t talk, and the director dumped them, along with Radcliffe's green contact lenses, both too hard on the young stars. Watson still found her role a burden as well as a pleasure. "When I was little, I didn’t understand that other kids thought I actually was Hermione, really geeky. It was devastating. I thought no one would ever fancy me. And the costumes..." There was the school uniform, all stiff and buttoned up for Hermione and hanging out for the boys. When the mini-witch was having fun, she wore frumpy, Brillo-pad jumpers in ugly colours. Indeed the Potter series has been a triumph for bad knitwear. “When I was just becoming a teenager, I took some coaxing to get into those horrible jumpers, but now I really use the discomfort, the itchiness, the backcombed hair, to get into character.”
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:46 AM
.
Labels:
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
interview
A very, very lengthy and detailed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince set report has been posted by The Guardian. In it, the reporter speaks with several cast and crew members and gives us a great look at how impressive the Potter franchise is.Of particular interest was this information concerning WB's involvement with the films:According to everyone I speak to at Leavesden, Warners has been remarkably hands off. It's only when Yates started to get a bit arty on The Half-Blood Prince that the studio had something to say. "
The only major run-in we've had since I came on board is regarding the look of this film. We had a fairly major negotiation about its look. Bruno Delbonnel, who was also cinematographer on Amelie, made it look very distinct and different to the previous Potters by using all these monochromatic washes. The studio wanted more colour added to it and we obliged. And actually it's no less artful with the new grade; it looks more beautiful, more inviting. When you're sending 28,000 prints around the world to goodness knows how many cultures, you need a show that pulls you in."
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:41 AM
.
Labels:
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
interview,
jessie cave,
RON WEASLEY,
RUPERT GRINT
As part of their ongoing Half-Blood Prince sneak peek series, the Los Angeles Times has a new interview with Jessie Cave. She'll be playing Lavender Brown in Half-Blood Prince. In the interview, Jessie touches on all aspects of the film including how she initially got the role: Q: For your final audition, what scene did you get to act out with Rupert? A: We actually had to improvise for a good 15 or 20 minutes, which is very scary. It’s a really long time. The director, David Yates, was there and he was just like, “Hi. Right. Here’s a plate of biscuits, Jessie. It’s a lovely plate of chocolate biscuits and I want you to do whatever you want with these biscuits.’ Rupert was in the room, sitting on the sofa, and I just thought, ‘What the hell am I going to do with this plate of biscuits?’ Q: What did you end up doing? A: I thought, ‘I’m just going to go for it.’ And I think Rupert was a bit scared, really. The biscuits were past the sofa, away from me so I kind of just tangled myself around Rupert and just made it really obvious that I didn’t really care about the biscuits. I just wanted to be near him. I think he was quite scared.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
9:16 AM
.
Labels:
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
rating
British Board of Film Classification rated Half-Blood Prince 12A. A detailed explanation the BBFC posted so the public can see why it received the 12A rating is as below.'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince', a fantasy adventure film based on the book of the same title, finds Harry and his friends returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for their sixth year.The film contains moderate threat. The moderate threat occurs in one quite scary sequence in which Harry and Professor Dumbledore are attacked by menacing looking creatures that have emerged from an underground lake. Harry is pulled into the lake and dragged beneath the water. The scene has the potential to upset younger or more sensitive children.In another scene Draco Malfoy kicks Harry (below screen) and appears to break his nose; blood can be seen on Harry's face. Tables are turned later on in the film when Harry defeats Malfoy in a wand battle in the school toilets. Malfoy, who is rendered unconscious, has several bloodstains on his white shirt and his blood can be seen to mix with and cloud the water on the flooded floor.Malfoy, however, is soon completely healed by a nearby teacher. The film contains mild language including the words 'God', 'bloody', tosser', 'sod', 'hell' and 'git'.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:57 AM
.
Labels:
inferi,
interview,
tim alexander
In the second part of its Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince countdown, the Los Angeles Times has a new interview with Tim Alexander, the visual effects supervisor in charge of bringing the Inferi to life.So how many Inferi lie in the lake? A couple million? Above water, you’d probably see about a hundred at a time. But when Harry gets dragged into the lake, there is a whole underwater environment…and it’s actually covered in bodies. It’s all just ... bodies crawling on top of each other, and that’s how you get into the millions. That sounds … disturbing. Certainly, more so than the previous “Potter” films. It’s certainly much bolder and scarier than we imagined that they’d ever go in a "Potter" movie. Director David Yates was really cautious of not making this into a zombie movie, so we were constantly trying to figure out how not to make these dead people coming up look like zombies. A lot of it came down to their movement – they don’t move fast, but they don’t move really slow or groan and moan. We ended up going with a very realistic style. They move like anyone coming up out of water. How so? When we go underwater with Harry, this female Inferi kind of comes up and grabs him and is pulling him down, but it’s more like a hug. Like an embrace. Like she’s trying to encourage him to join them. We were always trying to avoid turning the scene into one you’d see in a horror film.Tell me about how the Inferi look. How did the design come about?The art department on the film gave us a lot of references, like Dante’s "Inferno," where they have all those bodies. The Inferi themselves are very skinny and emaciated people. Very humanoid, but way skinnier than humans could be. Waterlogged and gray. We used the old lady that comes out of the tub in ‘The Shining’ as a reference. Most of the Inferi are adult, but we did also build two children, too.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
8:42 AM
.
Labels:
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
interview,
Steve Kloves
What, if anything, can you say about the climactic moment between Snape and Dumbledore? In the book, it’s a short but intense scene.It is informed by everything [Potter readers] have come to know is true. So if you watch the film carefully, there are performance moments that are quite extraordinary, Alan Rickman [who plays Snape] especially. There is something we added that you can look forward to, a short scene between Harry and Snape prior to the big event. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays to the audience. It should be a haunting moment for Harry. While I was writing, I just had a notion about a moment between him and Snape, something Harry could look back on and question as to why he didn’t act differently. I’ve also read that most of Dumbledore's pensieve memories of young Voldemort, then Tom Riddle, have been cut from the film. (Not to mention: Dumbledore's funeral!) In my original draft, I had every single memory but one, I believe. I even dramatized a couple of things that weren’t in the book in terms of Voldemort, like the death of Tom’s parents, things like that. I'm a Harry Potter fan, so my first drafts tend to reflect that, in that they tend to be long and all-inclusive. When [director] David Yates came in, he had a very specific point of view, which was that he wanted to showcase Voldemort’s rise without getting overly involved with his past as Riddle. He didn’t think that most of the memories would be as compelling on-screen as they are on the page. He liked them in the script, but he really felt that in the movie experience Voldemort’s story was more important than young Riddle‘s. We went back and forth on that for quite a bit. But he was very convincing, and I think it wound up working out well.
Are there any other changes or additions that you can talk about? I know one thing David is very proud of is getting Quidditch right. I do think it’s the first time that it feels like a sport. And it’s comic, which is fun. Rupert Grint [who plays Ron] is great. We also do a lot with the kids coming of age, navigating sexual politics and all that. It’s pretty interesting to see these characters doing that because the movies have always been a bit chaste, and they continue to be on some level, but there’s more happening in this one. You realize how complicated it is between boys and girls. It’s a lot of fun seeing Ron navigate his first girlfriend
What kind of things do you run by Rowling? A range of things, even something really simple. I once asked about the 12 uses of dragon’s blood, which is referenced in the books. There are writers who would write “12 uses of dragon’s blood” and not have a clue what they are; it just sounds cool. But I emailed her to ask (and this was 10 years ago), and 25 seconds later I get an email back with a list. Do tell. She's only mentioned "oven cleaner" in interviews. One is an oven cleaner, yes. Another is a spot remover. . . . It was really amazing. Really, the books are only the thinnest surface of what she knows about the series. Where Jo is helpful in a more serious way for me is when I want to know more about motivation or background, when Harry realized certain things, when characters understood things. There was one case where I was violating a plot thing -- it had something to do with Dobby, I think -- and she said, "No, you don’t want to do that," as she knew what was to come. She’s a great resource for problem solving and she has such a facile mind, she can help with complicated things. Though her plots are so fiendish that they’re really difficult for cinema.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
8:31 AM
.
Labels:
DANIEL RADCLIFFE,
Harry Potter,
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE
Australia's Herald Sun visited the set of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last year and interviewed Daniel Radcliffe. The article describes Leavesden Studios and a day on the set when Slughorn's Christmas party was being filmed. Radcliffe’s not in this scene, but he’s happily watching what Jim Broadbent, who makes his Potter debut in the Half-Blood Prince as Horace Slughorn, does with his several go-throughs. Slughorn is greeting guests, including Luna Lovegood (played by the wonderfully eccentric Evanna Lynch) dressed up like a silver Christmas tree, and with each take Broadbent mixes it up — easy stuff for a veteran of his status. ‘‘I wasn’t in the first shot this morning but I went down to watch it just ’cos . . . I’m just interested in it and I want to see how other people act together. It’s about learning, for me,’’ Radcliffe says.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
9:05 AM
.
Labels:
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS,
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
Kreacher,
Simon McBurney
We've learned that the casting agency representing actor Simon McBurney lists him as having the role of Kreacher in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Presumably he will just be lending his voice for the character. McBurney has also starred in such films as The Golden Compass and The Duchess.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
9:00 AM
.
Labels:
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS,
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
jessie cave,
lavender brown,
RON WEASLEY,
RUPERT GRINT
.jpg)
There is a new interview with Jessie Cave, who plays Lavender Brown in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in the July issue of Tatler magazine. In the interview, she discusses her "crush" on co-star Rupert Grint and how she got the part of Lavender Brown: For the final audition I was kitted out in Hogwarts uniform and driven in a golf- buggy to the Gryffindor common room. I had to improvise in front of a room full of people with Rupert and a paper biscuit for half an hour. The article also states that Jessie will be back for the final Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows film. One might recall that Lavender fights in the Battle of Hogwarts at the end of Deathly Hallows.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
9:26 AM
.
Labels:
david heyman,
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
When asked about the darkness of the film David said, ‘I don’t think it’s any darker than the fifth. I really don’t. I think it’s on a par with that.’ Talking about the overemphasis people place on the darkness of the films Heyman stated that, ‘Everybody obsesses with the darkness but ultimately I think that what it is, it’s very accessible, moving, funny and exciting.’
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
9:19 AM
.
Labels:
Hardwick Hall,
Malfoy Manor,
Warner Brothers
Warner Brothers recently visited Hardw ick Hall in Derbyshire to see if it was "suitable to feature" for use in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. A spokesman was quoted as saying: "It's certainly true that they have been to look but we are awaiting for confirmation. There's no guarantee that they are coming and, even if they did use it, it wouldn't be until next year." One could speculate it would be used for scenes at Malfoy Manor.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
9:09 AM
.
Warner Brothers has just passed along five photos from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Three of them are behind-the-scenes, and one is a lovely portrait: - Preparing to film at The Burrow- Harry and Dumbledore outside Slughorn's house with crew- Director David Yates walking through a library hallway
- Harry and Slughorn at Slughorn's Party with crew
- A beautiful portrait of Hermione
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
8:42 AM
.
Labels:
evanna lynch,
interview,
LUNA LOVEGOOD
Evanna speaks at length on the eccentric Ravenclaw student, noting her role in the events of the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. “Luna doesn’t change but her position changes in this new film. Most people are aware of her reputation for being crazy. She’s certainly picked on by the other students,” Lynch says.“As in any school people are reluctant to be close to that kind of person. Or to be seen to be close to her. But Harry is a lot more comfortable with himself in this film. He’s not as conscious of what people think of him or he just doesn’t care now.“He accepts Luna and he calls her a friend and she’s thrilled. She helps Harry to see sense when he gets caught up in his struggles. She reminds him who he is.” She continues: “Luna seems small and young and not noted for being brave, and yet she is. She’s really calm though, she doesn’t get surprised by anything, and she accepts people’s differences,” Lynch says. “In fact J.K. Rowling told me as a character she’s the most adjusted to the idea of death in the whole series. That cuts out a lot of fear for her. She tries to impress it on Harry. She’ll take it as it comes.” Evanna also gives her thoughts on her character and shipping, and yes it involves... Dumbledore. Quote: “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, because it might get me in trouble. But there’s this big thing among people who are fans of the books. It’s a thing they do as fans called ‘shipping,’ which is short for relationship.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:43 AM
.
Labels:
David Yates,
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
Finally, director David Yates sits down to answer questions about his returning as director for the final films, the performances from the actors in the film, his decision to return for Deathly Hallows, and a 'through-line,' which Yates says "...goes right the way through to the end... We're just putting in all sorts of little details between the characters, which hopefully will resonate through the films." Mr. Yates also goes on to describe the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film as:It’s love, potions and rock ‘n’ roll. There are all these wonderful things in our story. There’s a potion that gives you perfect luck. You take it and everything goes right for you. But it does heighten your senses somewhat and you get quite breezy with it. Then there’s a love potion that makes you very tactile with everybody. Rupert gets overly tactile with Jim Broadbent at one point. So, it’s got all those metaphorical values. There are some really lovely comic beats here, which we didn’t really get a chance to do last time. It was just a very different beast.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:40 AM
.
Labels:
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS,
RUPERT GRINT
Rupert Grint talks of his nostalgia watching the early Potter films, the ending of Deathly Hallows ("I was quite happy with the ending"), and the new Quidditch scenes his character is featured in during the film. RUPERT GRINT: Yeah, I've never done Quidditch in the films before so this is my first Quidditch experience. Dan says it's really painful and I know where he's coming from because it's quite uncomfortable, with the harness and stuff, and you're getting slung about. There are two stages. One is the try-outs where Ron is not very good and keeps getting hit in the face. Another stage is where Ron takes the potion and thinks he is really, really good. It's quite tricky but I've really enjoyed it. I'm always on a wire because the broom is quite high up, about 18 feet.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:35 AM
.
Labels:
EMMA WATSON,
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
Miss Watson relates similar feelings in her interview, speaking of her experiences filming the Harry Potter series, the budding romance between characters Hermione and Ron, her win at the ITV Movie Awards, and the diary she keeps of "funny little things I said or thought." She goes on to say of this:EMMA WATSON: ...
I also have memory boxes filled with things from the early films, including bits of the chess set. I have funny bits and pieces that they let us keep.QUESTION: Might all of that be helpful for an autobiography one day?EMMA WATSON: No, I couldn't see myself doing that. It's too strange and weird looking back on that little girl. I'm very self-critical so I find it hard to watch the early films again. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a film I was proud of, but I had to watch it three or four times before I could calm myself down and stay focused on my performance.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:32 AM
.
Labels:
DANIEL RADCLIFFE,
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
In the Q&A with actor Dan Radcliffe, the young discusses his desires to work on projects outside Harry Potter, the feelings upon filming the final films ("[Harry Potter] does act as a safety net, in a way, when you're going off to make something else. Knowing that you don't have that will be sad. I'll be sad to leave the character behind and not see the friends I've made on a daily basis"), his love for indie rock, and his thoughts on the different sides of Harry the sixth film with show. To this, he relates:DAN RADCLIFFE: There's friction in this film it's much more to do with Ron and Hermione than it is to do with Harry. Harry is unhappy for a lot of this film, mainly because people keep trying to kill him. And his love life is awful, too. That's what Jo [JK Rowling] does so well: combining everyday, mundane problems with this incredible other world.
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:20 AM
.
Labels:
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE,
sound track
Tracking listing for the soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince composed by Nicholas Hooper 1. Opening 2. In Noctem 3. The Story Begins 4. Ginny 5. Snape & the Unbreakable Vow 6. Wizard Wheezes 7. Dumbledore's Speech 8. Living Death 9. Into the Pensieve 10. The Book 11. Ron s Victory 12. Harry & Hermione 13. School! 14. Malfoy's Mission 15. The Slug Party 16. Into the Rushes 17. Farewell Aragog 18. Dumbledore's Foreboding 19. Of Love & War 20. When Ginny Kissed Harry 21. Slughorn's Confession 22. Journey to the Cave 23. The Drink of Despair 24. Inferi in the Firestorm 25. The Killing of Dumbledore 26. Dumbledore's Farewell 27. The Friends 28. The Weasley Stomp
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Posted by
JUSTIN
at
7:34 AM
.
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