"The film's done," he confirmed. "We're just mixing and there's a slight tweak we're going to do but actually, if the film was coming out tomorrow, we'd have done it but we have the time. One of the issues that's come up is security so we are not putting a married print together. We're keeping all the elements separate until we start to make the prints, which will be six weeks before the movie comes out. Piracy is such a huge issue."

[He] told us that they're already starting to set up the romance between his character, Professor Lupin, and the wizard Nymphadora Tonks, in "Half-Blood Prince." The colorful wizard was introduced in "The Order of the Phoenix," as played by 24-year-old Natalia Tena, and no one was more surprised than Thewlis when the novel "Deathly Hallows" was released and he realized his character Lupin becomes involved with a character played by a significantly younger actress.

Have you finished shooting Half-Blood Prince?
Thewlis: Yeah. That finished a long time ago. And, yeah, it's out next year.

And you're on to Deathly Hallows.
Thewlis: Yeah. The last one is going to be two movies.

Do you have a lot more to do in these last ones?
Thewlis: I have no idea. I mean, I have not seen the scripts.

Oh, really?
Thewlis: Yeah. We don't start until next February. And I think the scripts are just about coming out any time soon, so I'll be able to answer that. I have no indication yet of how much I'm involved.

And do you have much to do in Half-Blood Prince?
Thewlis: Oh, in Half-Blood Prince? No, not a great deal. About the same as Order of the Phoenix. No, I'm not central to it in any way. It's a few weeks work. Maybe a little more than in Order of the Phoenix.

Question: Is there a release going from something like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas to the Harry Potter movies? I mean, is that an escape from something like this?
Thewlis: Well, it's certainly not as intense, you know? I don't have to think about it as much, especially since I've been doing it for a few years now. I don't really immerse myself in that. I mean, I haven't had that much to do in the previous two films, and that was two films ago. But, you know, there's not really any research to be done for Harry Potter. I wouldn't know what to research, really.

Well, read the book, I guess.
Thewlis: Well, you read the book, yeah. But, you know, I've done that. And I don't study - you know, necromancy, wizardry, and - you know. I did make the attempts of the history of lycanthropy when I first started. But, you know, that is really turning up and doing the lines and just remembering how you did it the last time.

But when you do something like a Potter movie, because it's such a fantasy, and the world is so fantasy-oriented, does it remind you of why you wanted to become an actor in this, in the fact that it's all about make-believe?
Thewlis: Yeah. Well, there was a scene in The Prisoner of Azkaban, the scene with the Shrieking Shack and the three children - there's me and Gary Oldman and Timothy [Spall] and Alan Rickman all in the same room, and we're all pointing wands at each other and threatening each other like we've got a [INAUD] going on. [LAUGHTER] That really felt like being a kid at school with a water pistol going, "Come any nearer and I'll blow your head off." You know, that really felt like going back to childhood, doing something like that. Because you actually feel quite ridiculous. You've got a knitting needle in your hand, and you're threatening someone's life with it, you know. Now, obviously, when they put the special effects in, it does look a lot better. But you can imagine.