While gearing up for the 20th anniversary release of
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone later this month, HuffPost
spoke to
Harry Potter film series actor Oliver Phelps about his decade-long tenure portraying George Weasley, a few plotholes in the saga, what he has coming up next, and meeting J.K Rowling. Highlights from that can be read below.
Oliver joked about why the Weasley twins - or anyone else - didn't spot Peter Pettigrew's name on the Marauder's Map for so many years.
Quote:
Why didn’t Fred and George notice Peter Pettigrew sleeping in Ron’s bed on the Marauder’s Map?
Oliver Phelps: “Maybe it’s a boo in the family that no one talks of. ‘Who’s this Peter bloke? Maybe it was an unspoken word in the Weasley’s family,” insinuating, perhaps, that Fred and George didn’t want to press Ron on a relationship he wasn’t yet comfortable talking about. Sure, Ron was 11 years old when he first brought Scabbers/Peter to Hogwarts, but maybe the relationship wasn’t romantic.
The actor also revealed that the new project he and brother James are working on is a travel documentary.
Quote:
What’s the show going to be?
Oliver Phelps: It’s still under wraps to a point. I can say it’s a travel documentary show, so the premise is we go to a certain city and we do two sides of the same city.
On discussing the Weasley twins' backstory with author J.K. Rowling:
Quote:
Did you ever interact with J. K. Rowling on set?
Oliver Phelps: She was probably the most intimidating person I’ve ever met in my life, not by any fault of her own, just by ― she made everything that we were doing. I remember we were in Rupert’s dressing room on one of the later films, and she came in and totally blindsided all of us.
I think we were doing something silly, like, we were playing darts but with a crossbow or something not very mature. And she explained where the twins characters came from and where their influences are and stuff like that. I didn’t want to rock the boat too much and ask, “Well, what do they do afterwards ... what does one of them do afterwards?” But it was quite interesting learning the backstories and where the characters came from.
Did you ever hear you weren’t supposed to say the T in Voldemort? It’s supposedly pronounced “Voldemor.”
Oliver Phelps: Oh, really?
Yeah. Rowling revealed that. It was a big thing for days.
Oliver Phelps: No. Wow. Probably could’ve done with knowing that while we were filming it. [Laughs.]
To no surprise, Oliver admitted that he and James have lifetime free VIP admission to the Universal theme parks, home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction.
Quote:
Do you have a lifetime entrance to Harry Potter World?
Oliver Phelps: I think so. I mean, they did say that they would. I wanted a gold card they give you at Disneyland to get in. They said, “Well, we don’t do that at Universal. Just call the office, and they’ll get you in.”
I want a gold card to show you. [Laughs] To be fair to the guys, they’ve always been awesome when we’ve been down, and they’ve had close friends in as well.