Harry Potter is one of the most successful media franchises of the last century, spanning books, movies, plays, endless amounts of merchandise, and even theme parks. There is no doubting that Harry Potter has been a pillar of pop culture, and with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 on the way in 2018 and rumors of another set of movies based on the hit theater production "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," the Wizarding World is far from dead.
Recently celebrating its 19th anniversary, the Harry Potter film saga change the film industry is some interesting ways, and changed the lives of the actors in them forever. Let's take a look a 20+ ‘Harry Potter’ Secrets Only a TRUE Fan Would Know!
J.K.
Rowling agreed to let Harry have blue eyes in the movie after it was discovered the colored contacts irritated the actor’s eyes.
The production crew cut no corners when it came to accurately portraying the books, and even though it was costly, real food was used during the Great Hall feast scenes.
Because the food was real, it quickly spoiled under the hot lights and created foul odors.
In the next movies, they used fake molds of frozen food to avoid the bad-smelling problem.
The kids In the first Harry Potter movie - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, we all 10-year olds and that’s why they all had to get casts of their teeth, revealed Daniel Radcliffe in an interview: “Cause you've got a set full of twenty 10-year-olds...
they would cast everyone's mouths," since there was always a chance the small kids would lose one tooth while shooting, so they had to be replaced by a fake one!
The transformation of Dudley from overweight to fit is included in the books. However, actor Harry Melling lost so much weight in between movies that the makeup crew had to create a fat suit and special face prosthetics.
Still, most of his scenes had to be cut due to his extreme weight loss.
He also went through 60 or 70 wands during the series production.
Although bonding while filming, Emma was too embarrassed to hug Daniel and Rupert, so in the Great Hall scene at the end of the movie, Hermione doesn’t hug the boys, and the director of the movie made it so that she only hugged Harry and then get embarrassed and shake Ron’s hand – which is a great way to build up that relationship she will have with Ron in the next books.
Instead, J.K.
Rowling killed off Sirius Black when Bellatrix hit him with a curse, which knocked him through the veiled archway.
Susie Figgis was working as a casting director for the first movie, however, she left after Chris Colombus was “too picky” about casting the roles.
It’s said Colombus found none of the thousands of children who auditioned to be worthy of playing the parts.
There were over 17,000 hand-decorated wand boxes for the scenes at Ollivanders Wand Shop
Believe it or not, but Emma didn’t want to go to an audition when the casting team came to the elementary school. She was the single little girl that wasn’t interested in such a thing, but Emma’s teacher convinced her to go.
She was the last girl to attend the audition and the rest is history! Talking about Emma...
Hermione had buck teeth in the book series, but not in the movies because Emma Watson had trouble speaking with the fake teeth in her mouth.
With a cast of 10 and 11-year-olds, the production was limited to four hours of filming a day with a minimum of three additional hours dedicated to schoolwork.
However, British officials changed the child labor laws to add a few more working hours to the week and to make on-set classes more flexible.
The actors attended nearly three weeks of dance classes for the Yule Ball scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, except Daniel Radcliffe. Because of his heavy acting schedule, Radcliffe was only able to attend a few classes.
He’s mostly filmed from the waist up during the Yule Ball, so viewers can’t see his awkward motions.
Duke Humfrey’s Library is the oldest reading room in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, and it has a strict “no flame” policy.
However, they allowed production to use a flame in the lantern Harry uses while sneaking into the forbidden section.
Author J.K Rowling said she was constantly asked how to pronounce Hermione’s name, so she had the character teach Viktor Krum how to say in it in Goblet of Fire.
Actually, Grint is so afraid of the spiders, that it’s a severe arachnophobia. So when he and Harry was supposed to meet Aragog, he didn’t have to act like he was scared – just the thought of spiders helped him pull off that face.
Poor Ron/Rupert!
Once they were comfortable with their characters, the actors started adding improvised lines to scenes.
In one scene, Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) ad-libs the line "I didn't know you could read" to his friend Goyle, because he forgot the real one.
When they made the Whomping Willow scene, they had to wreck 14 Ford Anglias for the perfect shot when Harry and Ron crashed in the Whomping Willow.
The telescope is engraved with the signs of the zodiac and was one of the most expensive props used during filming.
Chris Columbus directed the first two movies before becoming “burned out.” Alfonso Cuaron directed the third, Mike Newell stepped in to direct the fourth, and David Yates directed the last four.
Each time a new director took over, they would all get together to ensure the movie flowed.
Scholastic bought the rights to the book for the American market and didn’t like how Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sounded.
So, the company had it changed and all the scenes of the movie that contained the phrase “philosopher’s stone” had to be re-shot with the actors saying “sorcerer’s stone.”
One more interesting thing about the Great Hall was that when Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered that set for the sorting hat scene, their reaction to seeing the hall was genuine!
The have never seen that hall before they shot the scene, and it had a great influence on their reaction.
The actors were actually drinking apple juice during the butterbeer scenes.
Daniel Radcliffe was first discovered by producer David Heyman and writer Steve Kloves as he attended a movie.
Heyman first noticed Radcliffe looked the part, then convinced his parents to allow him to audition for the role.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the scene where there were seven Harry Potters, was so complex that it took Daniel Radcliffe 90 takes for that shot!
Spielberg was first approached to direct Harry Potter, but after some consideration, he was found to not be the right fit for the job.
It’s said he wanted the movie to be animated with actor Haley Joel Osment voicing the main character.
All the scenes in the 4 Privet Drive were shot on a street with those houses – in Picket Post Close. To get reshoots of those scenes, the staff had to build the same model houses because they couldn’t get back there for reshoots.
Want to know something crazy?
The crazy thing is that they were not just hand written, but they were twice the number we saw in the movie! How come?
The Hogwarts acceptance letters were too heavy for the owls to carry them, so all of the hand written letters had to be rewritten again!