Interview: Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis), Hero of “Deathly Hallows 2”

Posted on July 18, 2011 at 2:13 pm

Matthew Lewis has played Neville Longbottom, classmate of Harry, Hermione, and Ron at Hogwarts, for all eight films. Like the character he plays, Lewis has surprised the fans by turning from an awkward child into a young man of great courage and dignity. It was a pleasure to see Neville’s important contribution to the final movie on screen and an equal pleasure to chat with Matthew about his experiences from his first audition to the final scenes.

You really are the hero of this movie!

That’s what they keep telling me. It’s been a lot of fun.

You’ve had an extraordinary opportunity to observe and learn from some of the greatest performers in the British theater, which means they are among the greatest performers in the world. What did you learn from co-stars like Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, and Michael Gambon?

I’ve learned more from them than they’ll ever know. Being around them on set, watching their professionalism, and even watching how they hold themselves off the set. They’re lovely people. Michael Gambon tells filthy jokes. Alan Rickman talks about having scrambled eggs for breakfast. They’re really just normal people who happen to be very, very good at what they do and it is very cool to be around them. I’m privileged.

And you’ve also worked with a variety of directors over the eight films. What did you learn from them? How were they different?

Chris Columbus was dealt the shortest straw, I think. He was given a bunch of children to work with who were not actors. Apart from his tremendous directing ability, he was brought in because of the way he worked with children. He must have found it so difficult at times and yet he never lost his temper, well, I imagine he did lose his temper, but never in front of us! He was so great to be around and he made us all go from being terrified young children to really enjoying what we were doing, having a great time as well as making a film. He made it enjoyable. And then Alfonso came in and made it much darker, but still obviously enjoyable because Alfonso is crazy! He was always playing tricks and pranks, having as much fun as the kids were. His directing style was quite similar to Chris in terms of working with children, but a lot crazier and wackier. And it was much more about what drove our characters, more of a profession then, looking at it as an art form, too.

And the Mike Newell came in and we were all a bit older, and he wasn’t afraid to give us that kick up the ass. If you weren’t pulling your weight he’d shout, “Put your back into it!” And at that age, that’s what we all needed, telling us we could do better. I thank him for that because it was a breath of fresh air.

And then David Yates came in, and he’s the loveliest man in the world. He took me into his office before we started the film and asked me to do some research. We really talked about Neville in depth and it was the first time I’d sat down with one of the directors and talked about Neville, what motivated him and what pushed him. I started to see acting as a real science. That really helped me grow as an actor. I owe them all. They were different in what they brought to each film, but David Yates in particular was one who really inspired me.

Tell me a little about Neville, and why he was underestimated by so many people at first.

He’s the unlikeliest of heroes. That shy little boy who was bullied, and no one ever thought he’d amount to anything, and turn him into this savior of the wizarding world. It’s inspiring. I think a lot of people can relate to his character. School can be a pretty lousy time for a lot of people. Neville shows that it doesn’t have to define you. You can stay true to yourself and your friends, you can do the right thing, you can do with your life whatever you want to. I think that’s a lovely message. I feel very proud and very humbled to have been able to play him.

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We Are Wizards: Documentary about Harry Potter Tribute Bands

Posted on July 17, 2011 at 8:00 am

Check out We Are Wizards, a documentary about Harry Potter Tribute bands, streaming now at no charge on Hulu.

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Glee 3D!

Posted on July 16, 2011 at 10:41 pm

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Interview: Lisa See of ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan’

Posted on July 15, 2011 at 10:26 am

Lisa See is the author of literary novel and book club favorite Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, the story of a deep and loving but sometimes conflicted friendship between two women in 19th century China. She spoke to me about what inspired her about women’s relationships and about how the story had to change when it was adapted for the screen. The movie opens today in some cities and and expands over the next few weeks across the country.

First, tell me what you think of the movie based on your book.

I really enjoyed the process. Of course I was nervous the first time I saw it but I really loved the movie. The part that is very true to the book is absolutely true to the book. The readers who read it will recognize certain scenes and characters and certainly all the emotions I had included. And there’s a modern element that has been added. It was not a part of my original book but it is a parallel story of friendship that I think will make viewers think about their own friendships. There are these two stories of different aspects of friendship that I think are pretty powerful.

Any adaptation of a book to a movie is a big move from the internal to the external and the addition of the modern story was a way to do that. What do you think the modern-day friendship story added?

That story is a little different, more a story of sacrifice in friendship and the consequences of sacrifice. What I really liked about the modern story in comparison to the original story set in the past is that it takes place in Shanghai right now, today. This is one of the biggest, most important cities now on the planet but one many people don’t know about. They were able to film in certain places where you and I would never be able to get to. For example there’s a nightclub scene. The club is called Shelter because it is in an old bomb shelter underneath the city of Shanghai. I thought, that’s so cool, I just love that, and how the old parts of the city are being torn down as all this modern life is going on.

Sometimes with Chinese stories, it can seem so much about this past, like costume drama or kung fu. But this combines a little of both, not just in the past but a continuum that brings these people right up to the present. Certainly now China is a global economic superpower and it is interesting to see that and Shanghai in particular in a way that has not really been seen in a film before.

How did you get interested in the issue of foot-binding and the ancient notion of laotong, or “old sames” to describe the deep and sustaining friendship between women — and are those two connected?

I had reviewed a book for the LA Times on the history of foot-binding. And in that book there was a three or four-page mention of a secret language. And I thought, how could that exist and I didn’t know about it? How could it exist and we all didn’t know about it? So often you hear that in the past there were no women writers, no women historians, there were women but supposedly they didn’t do anything. But here was an example of something women had invented and used. They had kept a secret for a thousand years. I was completely obsessed. But as I was doing the book and as I was doing the research I knew that I could not really write about this language and the relationships these women had without including foot-binding. It was part of why this even came about. It was a combination of illiteracy in men’s writing and the isolation caused by foot-binding that caused these women to first invent the secret language and then use it. This allowed them in a sense to fly out of their rooms, reach across the fields and find other women with whom they could connect, and how important that is for all women, whether in the past or in the United States today. We all have a need for friends or a friend with whom we can connect.

Both the ancient and the modern story in the movie are about friends who were pretty much assigned to each other. That seems different from our American notion of finding our own friends based on shared interests and perspectives.

Aren’t you thrown together by circumstance when you become friends? You’re in the same kindergarten or dorm or you work together or your kids are in the same class? They’re real circumstances, not artificial, but that’s how you meet. I know it’s in the book but in the film as well, that whole cultivation of a friend. Maybe you’re supposed to be friends and maybe you’ve just met them and would like to be friends but what is interesting is how you cultivate someone to become a friend. It is a kind of a courting, I suppose.

These friendships in the movie are so close. Is it possible to have that kind of closeness without impinging on your other relationships — your romantic relationship, your family?

You will tell your best friend things that you wouldn’t tell your boyfriend or your husband or your mother or your children. That doesn’t impinge on those relationships. It’s just different, a different kind of intimacy. The downside of that closeness is that it can leave you open to betrayal — just like any relationship.

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‘The Help’ — Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard

Posted on July 15, 2011 at 8:00 am

Bryce Dallas Howard

On playing the movie’s villain, Hilly:

“I literally don’t want to look at it – she’s such a terrible person. What’s interesting when you start doing a role is at first the character is really shocking. But then you play the character 18 hours a day and I’m like – look, I have long hair!”

“It’s really fun to be such a terrible character and the feeling on set is so joyful and we’re having such a wonderful experience together. The book and the script is the same way — It’s like a salacious read and really juicy and it does at moments get really quite heavy. But Tate has created this environment on set of making everyone feel really playful so that in those moments when it’s really intense and obviously incredibly loaded given our history as a country we don’t fall into this lull as actors – oh, my god, this is too much. For that reason, normally a character like this I would not be able to sleep at night, but because of the feeling Tate’s created on set when she’s evil it’s more fun than it is scary.’

On the Southern accent:

“Nadia the dialect coach has been really specific and has recorded people whose dialects were pure according to that time period. It’s a mishmash of a bunch of different recordings. It’s really fun and I love it and look forward to and enjoy it but really appreciate and need the support of a dialect coach. I wouldn’t know where to begin in terms of the nuance. The only other time I’ve done a Southern accent, I played a character in the 1920’s from Memphis – there are some similarities but also some distinct differences.”

On finding a way to make the villain a real character:

“She’s a duplicitous character, there’s always that duality. Someone gave me some great advice about the character. I was doing more of an arch-villain at first. She said, ‘You have to protect these women in this time in all its devastating honesty.’ Most women were definitely not like Hilly. She’s a particular person. It’s important to play that she’s not a two-dimensional character. She believes in certain things. Obviously, it’s not only misguided, it’s evil. But there is an origin for her beliefs. To not just play this crazy character, it’s important to understand the psychology behind it.”

On her research:

“The research that I did was fascinatingly personal. My mom was raised a lot in the South and when she was growing up, she was born in the 50s so in the 60s and 70s she was at times ostracized and called a Northerner. She actually started reading The Help and had to put it down because it was so intense for her. She’s picked it up again and she’s like, ‘It’s such a good book but I can’t read it before bed. I can read Stephen King before bed and Anne Rice before bed, but this is too intense.’”

Emma Stone

On her connection to her character:

“Skeeter and I have a lot more in common than I would care to admit. I’m not as brave as she is in what she is taking on. But I do understand being a maybe a little different than your peers. Everyone’s gone through that. I like that she isn’t a martyr and the lessons she learns. I love this girl so I am doing the best I can to accurately bring her to life.”

On what she gets from shooting on location:

“We’re lucky enough to be shooting in the South, which is so great. Being surrounded by Southerners and hearing their stories and watching civil rights history like Eyes on the Prize or books about Jim Crow that kind of helped me with the back story as far as the time period. But as far as being in the South we are so lucky that we’re in Mississippi because I never knew what the real feeling of being in the South was like, the kind of secrecy, the two sides there are to everybody. We’re in a small town. Everyone’s been so nice and so welcoming. They also know everything that’s going on. They know if I had someone over to my house last night! It really informs what’s going on in the movie. The secrecy required for something that’s illegal at the time is – I now understand so much more how quickly word travels in a small town in the South. It’s good to know what it’s like.”

On the relationship of her character to her frenemy, Hilly:

“Bryce has been pretty note-perfect so far. It’s really important to Tate to establish that Hilly and Skeeter were best friends and really did love each other. And they really do love each other underneath it all but they haven’t spent a lot of time together for the past four years. And in those four very formative college years their opinions on things greatly differ and it becomes more apparent now that Hilly is married and has kids. It’s easy for me because the way she’s playing it has been so fantastic. She can switch from sweet as pie to just awful in a heartbeat. She’s figured out the balance really well and it’s my job to react to whatever mood Hilly’s in.”

On being in a women-centered story:

“Everyone is here to make the same movie and no one’s come with an ego – when that’s the case and its women, I don’t want to sound all girl power here but it’s been a nice empowering environment to be in. And Tate’s keeping a calendar of when who is going through any hormonal times, he’s surrounded by nine emotional actress females.”

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