"Every film is such a huge production, and it's a long time."

"It would be a hard thing to change and it would be disrupting," says producer David Heyman, who secured the rights to the "Potter" books from author J. K. Rowling years ago, and has been the franchise's shepherd. "So yes, I would love them all to see it through to the end. I adore them—I feel like an uncle or godfather—but ultimately they have to do what's right for them. This is their lives." He notes that Watson went through this same questioning process before signing on for the third and fourth films. "So I'm cautiously optimistic that it will work itself out," he says.

"It looks great at the end of the fourth film, with sweat and blood matted into it, but we can't have every scene like that," he says, laughing. "And I like to imagine that Harry went home over the summer, angry, and chopped into it himself."

"The longer hair made him look boyish. We needed to progress him in age. He's older now, and looks more handsome with the shorter hair."

Daniel Radcliffe said that David Yates, the series' latest director, is really stretching him as an actor. Is that true for you, too?

Yeah, definitely. David won’t settle for anything that looks like acting [laughs]. What keeps coming up a lot is his search for truth in the characters and the performances. He really wants it to be real.

The fourth film [“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”] was sort of about all the tasks, fighting dragons, and all of that.

This film is about Harry fighting his inner demons more than dragons. It’s about the emotional journey. So I think David is the perfect director for that.

Also, his previous work has all been quite politically based, like “Sex Traffic” and “The Girl in the Café,” and with this film you see much more of the world outside of Hogwarts. [The book and film deal, in part, with how the Ministry of Magic begins to restrict personal freedoms and civil liberties following a wave of attacks.] I think this film will be quite relevant to what we’re all experiencing at the moment with all of the terrorist attacks. The film eerily coincides with all of that.

Do you think you want to be an actress for the rest of your career?

I really don’t know. Daniel and Rupert seem so sure. I don’t know.

I wouldn’t want “Harry Potter” to be the last thing I do. Nothing is ever going to be quite on the scale of this. I appreciate that. And also I’ve come into acting in such a funny way.

Most people who want to act have to sit through hours of auditioning and work their way up, whereas I seemed to have come straight in at the top, having had no experience at all. That’s quite a strange position to be in, but amazing at the same time because it has given me so many options and choices.

I definitely would like to try other films to see what it’s like. I’d really like to try some theatre, actually, because I think I would really enjoy that immediate response from an audience. I love making people laugh.

I love to perform, but there are so many things I love doing. [Pause] Maybe that seems ungrateful. I have been given such an amazing opportunity, but I’ll just have to go with the flow and see what happens.