I can’t believe I’ve never done a blog post about the Harry Potter films. I did a few that made reference to them, but nothing that showed my love of the series and film trivia. With Freeform having a Harry Potter weekend this weekend, and Universal Studios Hollywood opening The Wizarding World of Harry Potter on April 7th, it’s the perfect time to share.
–Alan Rickman was hand-picked to play Snape by J.K. Rowling, and received special instruction from her as to his character. Rowling even provided the actor with vital details of Snape’s back story not revealed until the final novel.
–Warner Bros. originally considered making the entire “Harry Potter” series as a set of CGI animated films, or attempting to combine several of the novels into a single movie. The studio’s reasoning mainly had to do with concern over the rapid aging of child actors-if production ran too long on any of the films, or if production was delayed between sequels, the leading actors might have to be recast. Author J.K. Rowling vetoed both the ideas of combining books and an animated film, so the studio decided instead to produce all seven (later eight) films back to back so the same child actors could play their roles in every film.
–In order to make the Dursleys’ house even more unpleasant, set decorator Stephenie McMillan deliberately sought out the ugliest furnishings possible.
–Robbie Coltrane was also handpicked by J.K. Rowling to play Hagrid.
–The child actors in Harry Potter would do their actual schoolwork in the movie to make the school setting more real.
–The Restricted Section scene was filmed in the Duke Humfrey’s building at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. They have very strict rules about not bringing flames into the library. The makers of Harry Potter were the first ever to be allowed to break this rule in hundreds of years.
–The last name Dumbledore means “Bumblebee” in Old English.
–The Hogwarts motto, “Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus”, means “never tickle a sleeping dragon”.
–Author J.K. Rowling revealed on her website that she was considered to play Lily Potter during the Mirror of Erised scene, but she turned down the role, which instead went to Geraldine Somerville.
–The scenes at Hagrid’s Hut were filmed on location, albeit in a small patch of land in London not far from Leavesden Studios. The hut was demolished when the shoot wrapped in case fans of the film swamped it.
–Tom Felton did not read any of the Harry Potter books before auditioning, and at the audition the director was asking each contender for the role of Malfoy what their favorite part in the book was. When it was his turn, Felton said his favorite part in the book was the part at Gringrotts, which is what the previous contender had just said. The director saw through this very quickly and thought it was very funny.
–West Anglia Great Northern Trains, the company that owns “Platform 9-3/4”, affixed one-quarter of a luggage trolley forwardly “disappearing” into the wall so as to allow fans (and their parents) to take pictures of themselves seeming to disappear into the wall.
–The filmmakers originally wanted to use Canterbury Cathedral as a filming location for some of the Hogwarts scenes, but the Dean of Canterbury refused to allow it, saying that it was unfitting for a Christian church to be used to promote pagan imagery. Gloucester Cathedral agreed to take its place; the Dean of Gloucester, the Very Reverend Nicholas Bury, admitted to being a fan of the books. Nonetheless there was a huge media outcry in Gloucester when it was decided to use the local Cathedral as a filming location. Protesters wrote letters by the sack-load to local newspapers, claiming it was blasphemy and promising to block the film-crew’s access. In the end, only one protester turned up.
–Nicolas Flamel, mentioned as the creator of the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, has figured as a plot device in novels featuring characters such as Batman, Indiana Jones, and Robert Langdon of The Da Vinci Code (2006). He was (possibly) a real alchemist (born in France around 1330) who was believed by some people to have produced the Philosopher’s Stone. Since there were mysterious circumstances surrounding his death in 1418, it has been rumored that he lived for hundreds of years. The book/movie gets his age right.
–Richard Harris had trouble remembering his lines, and Daniel Radcliffe would ask him to help with running his lines, just to give Richard more practice.
–In the film, the scar on Harry’s forehead is off-center. This was done at J.K. Rowling’s request. Due to the artwork on the covers of her books, many people have assumed that his scar is supposed to be in the center of his forehead. The books, however, never specify exactly where on his forehead the scar is located.
–When holding auditions for the role of Hermione, the casting team traveled around to local British elementary schools to hold auditions in hope to find their actress. When they arrived at Emma Watson’s school, she had no desire to audition despite nearly every single girl in her school wanting to. It was encouragement from her teacher to at least attempt the audition that made her be the last girl to audition of her whole school.
–Rosie O’Donnell and Robin Williams were two of the celebrities who had asked for a role in the movie without pay. However they did not film any scenes for the movie.
–The floating candles in the Great Hall were created using candle-shaped holders containing oil and burning wicks and suspended from wires that moved up and down on a special effects rig to create the impression that they were floating. Eventually one of the wires snapped due to the heat of the flame causing the candle to fall to the floor. Fortunately no one was injured, but the decision was made to re-create the candles using CGI for the following films as using real candles was determined to be a safety hazard.
–In the trophy cupboard, to the right of the Quidditch trophy, you can see the “Service to the School” trophy with part of “Tom M. Riddle” engraved on it; the trophy and the name on it are confirmed by Ron in a deleted scene from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).
–Hagrid is 8 feet 6 inches tall.
–Among the portraits on the shifting staircase, you can clearly see a painting of Anne Boleyn (King Henry VIII’s second wife, mother of Queen Elizabeth I).
–In this film, all the food that you see in the Great Hall feasts are real. Director Chris Columbus wanted a very elaborate welcome feast to match the description in the book, with roast beef, ham, turkey, and all the trimmings. Unfortunately filming under the hot stage lighting for hours at a time quickly caused the food to develop an unpleasant odor, despite the meat being changed every two days and the vegetables twice a day. For the following films samples of real food were frozen so that molds could be made of them and copies cast in resin.
–The floor in the great hall is made of actual York stone. Production designer Stuart Craig had the foresight to invest a significant amount of his design budget on the stone. While this decision was questioned at the time, it proved to be a wise one, as the stone was durable enough to withstand the footsteps of hundreds of actors and several camera crews over the near decade it took to film the entire series.
–The Wizard’s chess-set Harry and Ron were playing in the Great Hall is based on the Lewis Chessmen, which date from the 12th Century. They were found in 1831 on a beach on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. In all, 93 pieces were recovered, with 11 now residing at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and 82 at the British Museum in London.
–Throughout the whole of the Harry Potter series, Daniel Radcliffe went through 160 pairs of glasses
–This movie, the first in the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise, has the equal highest number of Academy Award nominations by a ‘Harry Potter’ movie totaling to three. The other series entry to do this was the final film in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). This is the only ‘Harry Potter’ movie to be Oscar nominated for the Best Costume Academy Award.
–Despite many instances of Harry being noted as a “great wizard” Harry does not in fact cast a single spell during the entire movie.
Leave a Reply