It’s a year since we did our interview with you, has your life changed much since then?

I’ve been back home since November and gradually all connections with my HP life have been fading. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like it was a dream because everything has gone back almost exactly to how it was before it all happened. It’s possible to forget and it’s only when someone asks ‘when’s the movie coming out?’ that I remember ‘oh yes, that’.

It was just as brilliant and as perfect as I had hoped and even though I was determined that I would get into a HP movie before it all, I was a bit stunned. Everytime I stopped and thought and realised how smoothly it had happened. It reminded me of playing the Sims (except that my Sims often die).

Are there many similarities between yourself and Luna Lovegood?

I think the main difference between us is that I am a lot more ambitious and that makes me serious. Luna is so free and seems to drift along with life, dealing with everything as it comes to her. I have more goals so I’ve more worries. I think that’s why I love Luna so much. She doesn’t have to have achievements or approval to feel satisfied and she’s as wonderful and balanced a person as anyone could be. She knows worrying is pointless so she just floats and I really admire that in her.

The new Harry Potter book, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ is due out in July. Have you any idea what is going to happen in this book and what is ahead for Luna? Do you know what the Deathly Hallows refers to?

My favourite theory is that it refers to the veil in the Department of Mysteries. All Hallows Eve is the time when the ‘veil’ between the two worlds is at it’s thinnest. I think Harry will have to go through the veil for some Horcrux-hunt related reason and he’ll have to get to understand death more and he may meet Dumbledore because apparently JKR told Dan that DD was giving her ‘trouble’. Also JKR is always emphasising that there are worse things than death and I think it would be very like her to trick us like that, so that Harry is ‘dead’ but we’re still with him, death isn’t the end.
Most people think that he either lives or dies but I like the idea that it’s an in-between.

Has appearing in ‘The Order of the Phoenix’ lived up to your expectations?

I was a little bit heartbroken to find that all the sets were in separate parts of the studio or that some of them had been dismantled. Also as I got to know the other actors I realised how different a lot of them are from their characters, extremely nice but different. As a fan that was tough to learn at first.

Are you looking forward to seeing how HP fans will react to the movie or are you nervous?

I want more than anyone for JK Rowling to be pleased with my Luna, because it’s her character. I have a nightmare of being at the after-party and meeting Jo and she’s just standing there shaking her head, and looking sad. That’s my boggart (worst fear). But she has been positive so far, so I am optimistic.

Have you found it difficult to combine your filming with studying for your junior cert?

Yes, very, very hard. I got very carried away with my HP life and we did have school but I didn’t study, I just had fun. So now I find it very hard to motivate myself to do work. And after all the school I missed I have so much work to catch up on.