E! Behind the Scenes CoS

Welcome to another exciting year at Hogwarts school. This year’s courses include pixie swatting, wrestling with a giant tree and don’t forget to try some of the fine cuisine.

scene of Harry, Ron and Hermione “enjoying” a taste of their polyjuice potion!

Oh yeah, and something in the school’s dark past will be awakened.

Professor Dumbledore: The Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened.

Professor McGonagall: Unless the culprit is caught, it is likely the school will be closed.

Luckily Harry Potter has it all under control

scene of Harry hanging from the door of the flying car

Join us as we find out the inside scoop from Hogwarts’ star pupil.
Dan: It’s a lot darker, a lot scarier, kind of edgy. But it’s also it’s a lot funnier than the first one as well.

Learn about the great teachers.
Kenneth Branagh: He’s unashamed. There isn’t a shameful muscle in Gilderoy’s body.

And find out what to put on a slug to make it taste better.
Rupert: This gave all these choices like chocolate, lemon, orange, peppermint to see my favorite slug slime. And it made them taste really nice.

All that and more as we go behind the scenes of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

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Welcome to Behind the Scenes. I’m Kristin Malia. All right all you Muggles, class is in session once again at Hogwarts school in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the follow up to last year’s box office sensation. Daniel Radcliffe returns as the title character who is a year older and on his way to becoming a top notch wizard. But not everybody is excited about Harry’s returning to school.
30 second clip of Harry escaping from the Dursleys with Fred, George and Ron.
Dan: I think it’s funnier than the first film. It’s got more action in it. And also it’s got a lot more emotional depth, especially to Harry’s character. And as I said before, it’s a lot scarier, a lot darker, a lot creepier

Rupert Grint is back as Ron Weasley who has some added responsibilities this time.
Ron: Yeah, he’s kind of changed because his sister’s now there and he’s kind of gotta be the big brother, kind of looking after the sister, yeah.

Completing the trio of wizards in training is Emma Watson as Hermione.
Emma: She becomes more friendly with Harry and Ron and she definitely becomes more sort of easy going. She’s kind of a little less obsessed with books and what. It doesn’t take away from the character but it sort of just softens it down a bit which is good.

One thing that hasn’t softened is Harry’s relationship with his archrival, Draco Malfoy. As actor Tom Felton explains, his character’s nefarious qualities apparently run in the family.
Tom: Draco’s dad…His name’s Lucius Malfoy. He wasn’t even really mentioned in the first one. He’s got a big part in the second one. He’s great in the second one. He makes the Malfoy name a bit more scarier. And yeah, he’s really good.

Dan: Jason Isaac’s character is Lucius Malfoy. He is a slimeball basically.

Jason: I do my best to get Dumbledore out of the way. It’s always on my agenda to get Harry out of the way. And you’ll have to see the film to see if it works. (“Let us hope Mr Potter will always be around to save the day.” “Don’t worry. I will be.”)

Unfortunately for Harry, his go-to guy, Hagrid, isn’t around very much. He’s played once again by Robbie Coltrane.
Robbie: Hagrid doesn’t really have much of a active part in the adventures at all in book two. Sort of a bit of a part timer in this one. Yes, I think you’ll find that Mister Branagh gets most of the screen time in this one. No bitterness there.

He’s talking about Kenneth Branagh who joins the cast as the newest teacher at Hogwarts.
Kenneth: It’s a burden to be Gilderoy Lockhart but it has to be done, you know. Lots of publicity. Lots of people asking for his autograph and it may not be mutual but feels as though he’s found a soulmate in Harry.

It’s not all fun and games this year. There’s also a huge mystery to uncover, according to director Chris Columbus.
Chris: Salazar Slytherin built a secret chamber in the school called the Chamber of Secrets where he could go and work on his dark magic. Well at some point the only way the chamber could be opened, once Slytherin was dead, was by the true heir of Slytherin. And in the film, it’s a bit of a mystery trying to find out who the heir of Slytherin is.

35 second clip of Harry dueling against Draco.

Producer David Heyman promises a more take-charge Harry Potter this time out.
David: In this film, Harry is more proactive. He is leading the charge. In the first film, he was discovering his new family and discovering his new friends..discovering his new home in Hogwarts. In this film, he is protecting them from this dark force.

Dan: Harry character is very much different from in the first film. As he has developed so much, I’ve had to develop myself as well. I’ve now developed kind of two instincts, my instinct and Harry’s instinct, and if I’m in a situation in the film I think ‘How would Harry react to this’ and so I try to bring that across onto the screen.

Much more ahead when we come back. If you’re looking for a bad guy for your next movie, Chris Columbus will tell you who to get.
Chris: He’s something special. The camera loves him. And unfortunately the camera loves him in a really evil way.

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets features all the characters you met in the first film and sweetens the pot by adding three more to the mix. Two Shakespearean actors and a computer generated image.

45 second clip of Harry meeting Dobby for the first time.

David: I think that Dobby is a particularly challenging character just because you’re creating a wholly digital character. Challenging on the part of the visual effects team and challenging on the part of Dan Radcliffe who had to act with an orange ball for all of the scenes with Dobby.

Dan: There was a lot of visual effects I had to deal with in the first film obviously but because Dobby is so animated and he’s jumping about all over the place and plus it’s kind of hard to tell what kind of face an orange ball is making. It was a lot harder but everybody on the set made it so easy for me that I actually kind of got into it by the end.

40 second clip of Professor Lockhart “fixing” Harry’s arm.

Kenneth: Gilderoy is something of a dandy. He’s rather vain and self congratulatory and I think feels himself to be terrifically important, thinks of himself also as being terrifically modest. He is neither of those things, which various people point out to him during the course of the story.

Chris: There’s one way to play Gilderoy Lockhart, which is an as incredibly sort of egotistical primadonna. But because culture has taken us into a different area, Ken and I talked about playing it in a much more subtle way so you can see through his character.

Kenneth: He’s very very full of himself in a delicious way and doesn’t really understand why anybody else wouldn’t be.

35 second clip with pixies in Defense against the Dark Arts class.

Dan: All those new characters, they were fantastic to work with, because Ken Branagh and Jason Isaacs have been doing it for ages and ages and they are absolutely legendary British Shakespearean actors and everything. Certainly Ken and I think Jason Isaacs is amazing.

Jason: I’d read the book when I saw the first one and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a book captured so faithfully on screen. And I couldn’t quite believe I was going to get to play in the playground with all these people up there. One of my favorite actors just chewing up the scenery and I wondered what I could do to make a bold impression.

Chris: I had seen Jason Isaacs in two films and I thought ‘I really want to work with this guy’. He’s something special. The camera loves him. And unfortunately the camera loves him in a really evil way. He personifies evil to me on screen sometimes.

30 second clip of Harry meeting Lucius Malfoy.

Dan: It’s a lot darker, a lot scarier, kind of edgy. But also it’s a lot funnier than the first one as well with characters like Ken Branagh and Rupert when he’s belching up the slugs and stuff. It’s those kind of moments that kind of give it a balance.

45 second clip of the Slug Scene

Rupert: There literally were slugs there in my mouth but that was really good because they flavored them with slime. They gave me all these choices like chocolate, lemon, orange, peppermint to see what was my favorite slug slime and it made them taste really nice.

Dan: Liar! The slug crawling on the ground was real obviously. The slug he had in his mouth was fake but it was flavored. Like he had a favorite slug that he liked to chew on.

Rupert: I put it in my mouth. When I had to cough it up, it was really cool.

When we return you’ll learn how the kids not only acted in the movie but also moonlighted as stunt men.

Rupert: It was cool cause we got to do more stunts and everything. Like the flying car was one of my favorites cause it was like being on a theme park ride.

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[When it comes to working with kids, few directors have as much experience as Chris Columbus. After helming some of the most popular comedies of all time, including Home Alone and Adventures in Babysitting it seemed only natural that Columbus take the reigns on Harry Potter. Now with the Potter sequel, Columbus has decided to tinker with some of that childhood innocence.

40 second clip of Harry being chased by bludger.

Chris: It was also exciting to make a darker picture. Slightly more of an action adventure film this time around which is really exciting to me. It appeals to the ten year old boy inside of me. I really wanted to make an action adventure sort of Indiana Jones section of this film.

Kenneth: Chris Columbus has the gift of energy. Cannot be underestimated on a project that takes so long and requires such lightness of spirit. You need someone at the center who has the energy to sustain that, energizes other people.

Emma: It’s not like he’s just standing at the monitor screaming instructions at you. It’s like he’s there in it with you. He listens to your suggestions, thoughts, ideas, and he certainly made me feel like a really good part of it.

Dan: I mean, yeah, definitely. That’s what’s so great about Chris. He’s into everybody. Even me (Dan pouts)… a child. (Laughter in background)

David: Our goal with the films is to have them be true representations of the books, in spirit and in story and character to reflect the books.

Dan: I think probably 90 percent of the audience have read the books or have had the books read to them. And that 90 percent would not be happy, I don’t think, if we took the darkness out of the film. And so I think if you didn’t make it scary or edgy or anything, I (don’t) think you would be doing the book justice.

Rupert: It was cool because we got to do more stunts and everything. Like the flying car was one of my favorites cause it was like being on a theme park ride.

45 second clip of the flying car. (Same one shown the other day on the Early Show)

Dan: The flying car scene was so much fun cause we just got in the car basically. Cause we were in there for periods of about an hour and a half sometimes, we just got up there and joked around.

Coming up: What is it like working on a big Hollywood movie? The kids tell all next.
Emma: There is no typical day. It’s completely random and everything is really tight packed and everything is very very rushed.

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Now what would you do after starring in one of the highest grossing films of 2001. Would you sit back and bask in the glory? Well the young stars of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone went right back to work on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. So what’s a typical day on the set like?
Emma: There is no typical day. It’s completely random and everything is really tight packed and everything is very very rushed and it’s like you’ve gotta go to the set and you’ve gotta come back again and back to hair and makeup and back to tutoring and back to the set. It’s kind of like… you go to school for like fifteen minutes and you’re back on the set again. It’s all really very very hectic all the time.

David: The crew and everybody around them doesn’t treat them as children or as too special. The kids have a great time and yet they’re kept on their toes. They’re teased; they have to work hard. And they also have to do their schooling. You know, they have three hours of schooling one on one. They can’t slack in that. And the good news is that they did better this year than they’ve ever done before.

Kenneth: The amazing to me casting chemistry of the central trio with Dan and Emma and Rupert, who clearly get on very well and who are good company. They were the people actually along with Chris that made me feel at ease.

Chris: They’ve been working for a year and a half so these kids are actually becoming seasoned professionals. It used to take ten or eleven takes to get to a certain point in their performances and now it takes three or four. And they’re just very very secure in their roles. Very very secure and they know who they are as characters, which is good.

Dan: One of the ways I think I’ve developed is I’m not quite so shy about putting ideas forth. You see in the first film I wouldn’t have done it. But in the second I think, I kind of have a bit more confidence with putting ideas forward and trying new things and doing different line readings and so I think the second film has proved to be much more of a challenge but hopefully I’ve met the challenge and I’ve done hopefully quite well.

Written by Madika
Last Change of this page: Aug 6th, 2004, 3:45 am