"You have to have the actor to do it," Newell said in an interview. "And Ralph was the actor to do it, because Ralph doesn't chew the scenery, and he isn't a sort of 19th-century melodrama figure. He's absolutely real and cold and chilling and absolutely dedicated to doing bad. And as soon as you have that, you can do it."

"What does he want?" Newell asked. "Why does he want to come back? What sort of a person is he that he wants to come back? What sort of a person is it who wants to impose a reign of evil? Does somebody who wants to impose a reign of evil actually see that it's evil? Or is it in fact for them a kind of good? So there was a lot of that stuff, which is the sort of thing that you discuss with an actor when he's getting to really concentrate on the part. And that was all very, very profitable."

"It's another huge, wacky novel, and, simply, I've been busy," he said. "I obviously read the fifth one, because that has relevance. But, no, I didn't do that. Nor did I change my view of things for any of the stories that might be coming up. I've been very strongly encouraged by the producers and by Warner Brothers to think of this as a specific one-off film."