Several reports from the Warner Bros Studio Tour London: The Making of Harry Potter press junkets from this past Wednesday, including with Rupert Grint, have been released online so far via the Associated Press, Huffington Post, and Watford Observer. The cast, including Rupert, Bonnie Wright, James and Oliver Phelps, Tom Felton, Warwick Davis, Natalia Tena, and Mark Williams, discussed the familiarity and awe of being back at Leavesden Studios as part of the tour. The AP video can be seen here; highlights from the other two interviews are below.





Huffington Post:

James Phelps, said: "The last scene we filmed here had the bulldozers waiting outside to get started and when we came in today it’s totally unrecognisable."

Although the buildings and the layout of the studios have changed, Felton reassured us: "The sets are just as I remember them."

"You only usually see what the camera shows in the films and people assume what’s behind the camera is the same thing, but it's not. It's usually a bunch of people drinking tea and coffee and this tour paints that whole picture, which I think is really important", explained Felton.

Felton said: "Even things they knew for a fact would never be seen on camera would be detailed, the designers were so passionate that they wouldn't leave it, they would do it for their own satisfaction."

Talking about the labour that went into creating the sets, Davis said: "There's things people will have never seen having watched the film, but if you come down to the studio tour here you can actually see stuff up close, like the parchments actually have things written on them."

Davis said: "A lot of the time it's like real magic, the set is built and then these people come in and dress it and transform it and we walk in to film on a set like that and it's all there in place.

"They're the unsung heroes and I think that's what the studio tour is all about, this is their time to show off their work."

[So] what do the cast think is the most impressive part of the tour?

For James Phelps it's the Great Hall. "That's the part that people always think of in Harry Potter," he explained. "When we walked in there today it was really surreal, I remember going in there one day and thinking that they were knocking it down and that was it, it's still really impressive."

Davis agreed: "The Great Hall is so impressive and for me, who has worked on the film, there's a lot of memories there. But for people like yourself who've grown up with the film it's kind of iconic, you think of Hogwarts you think of the Great Hall, so many things have happened there, from the feasts, the Sorting Hat, a funeral, the Yule Ball. In the last film you see it partially destroyed, so it's quiet nice for us going back in there and seeing it restored."

Grint said: "The Ministry of Magic is really impressive too, you get the sense of the size."

Wright added: "We've only seen a bit of what's being created they've still got to put in our kitchen and there's going to be a room celebrating all the things that creature effects and the art department did."

"I remember the first time I walked into the Great Hall and it was all floating candles, I think Dan actually hyperventilated," mused Grint.

Mark Williams confirmed the young actors' amazement: "You could see it on their faces when they were little, there were plenty of times, particularly on the big sets, where they weren't acting. They came in and you could see them go 'Wow, we're in this film' on their faces."

Watford Observer:

James Phelps, who played Fred Weasley says: “We went into Dumbledore’s office and up the staircase beside the telescope and it had all these astrological symbols on it that I never knew were there. We saw the archive of material and the detail of all the props, you really can see how much goes into it.”

Rupert Grint: “Leavesden is the spiritual home of the Harry Potter movies and it’s a special place for all of us. We all grew up here. When the last film finished it was a sad thing not to be coming here every day. Now fans of Harry Potter can really experience what it was like on set and feel the air of how it was.”

Mark Williams says: “It’s good that Leavesden has turned into a major studio and Warner Bros has continued its commitment to film-making here. It has history as a 1930s aerodrome factory for de Havilland aircraft and now it’s a state-of-the-art British film studio and a studio tour, not a theme park – it’s the authentic experience. It’s also an enormous leap forward for the franchise and for British film-making and it’s in Leavesden, in Watford. Hurray.”

Fran James Granger

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