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Order of the Phoenix:
London Press Junket Excerpts
This page will be continually updated with additional excerpts over the coming days.
Emma Watson (EW): I didn’t sign the contract sort of immediately because I needed some time, actually, to figure out the logistics, as you can imagine, of combining making a Harry Potter film – making two more Harry Potter films – with my school timetable. I really want to go on to university. I really wanted to continue what I was doing. I didn’t want to have to give either one up, so I was kind of in this really difficult position. It just took a bit of time to work out how I was going to make that work.
Warner Brothers have been extremely supportive of helping me figure out ways to do that. For instance, they’ve given me Monday mornings off, so I can go to school and I can see my teachers and I can pick up my work. They’ve provided all of the tutors I need to get all my work done. Even though I’m over the age of 16, they’re still giving me the hours I need to get all my work done. They have got a box every Friday which I can put my work into, which they’ll send back to my teachers – they’ll mark it and send it back to me.
It just took a while just to figure out the logistics of how it was going to work. I found it quite frustrating and obsessing all of the insinuations that were made about why I was holding off, but I just had to figure out a way to make it work for me, and that took a bit of time.
Q: Matthew Vines from Veritaserum.com. What message do you want people to leave the movie with, both from the movie as a whole and from your performances individually?
EW: Well, I guess, in a big way, what this film is about is Harry is in a really, really difficult place. He feels really isolated. He wants to isolate himself, because he thinks that if he does that, then he won't have as much to lose. I think a lot of the film is about Harry's journey to realizing that he doesn't have to do it on his own and the importance of his friends and the importance of just friendship and that you need to sort of look at it in a positive way, as in that actually, the friends that he has and the people he has behind him…while it's scary because he might lose them, it actually gives him something to fight for, and that makes him a much more powerful wizard/man than Voldemort. That was, I think, that was for me, one of the key messages that it was about.
DR: I also think it's about, in terms of Harry's character, it's about sticking to your guns. If you know something is the truth and you know that it's right, then you can't let yourself be compromised by other people and outside forces, and I think that's what Harry and Dumbledore go through in this film. For me, that - along with everything that, obviously, you said - is another central message of the film. Our performances individually: I don't really know. I think it's - I don't think -
EW: I think it's a natural step.
DR: Yeah.
EW: I don't think it's anything that we've really thought about.
DR: No.
EW: I think it's just, as we've grown up, and we've worked with a different director, he's brought out different things in us and helped us to develop -
DR: Yeah.
EW: - and we've learned more and for every film, we learn something new, and we kind of bring all of everything that we've learned together.
DR: Yeah. I think we're all a lot better as well.
EW: Yeah. I think we're better.
DR: We have all grown and developed, and it does add something to the film, certainly, I think.
Q: Matthew Vines from Veritaserum.com. Mr. Heyman, you've been on this, obviously, since the very beginning, whereas Mr. Yates and Mr. Goldenberg, this is your first involvement in the series. So I was wondering: were there any aspects of your visions for this film that were conflicting, versus how it fits as a piece in the overall puzzle and how the film works in its own right, and how did you reconcile those?
David Yates (DY): Well, David has this quill…
[Laughter.]
Michael Goldenberg (MG): No, I actually - I felt like we were all on the same page.
David Heyman (DH): And it all comes from the books. It's a really organic process. Jo has created a really vivid world, and Michael - I spoke to Michael about the first film. Mike was somebody whose writing I've admired for ages, who's been a Potter fan….we've known each other for quite a while. He's a huge Potter fan. The fifth book wasn't the first one he read. He's a big fan, so there was not really any question about, you know - we discussed among ourselves, as Potter fans, all of us, what you can get away with and what you can - "get away with" may not be the best way to put it - but, you know, how far you can push things, and would this exist in the Potter world. And if we ever got into too much conflict…this was not a dictatorial environment. Except for David. No, David is the most - it is the most collaborative environment. We all were in it together. If there really was anything that we would be uncertain about, we would call Jo.
DY: We can always call Jo!
DH: And that really, actually, never was an issue. There was one time - there was a character we were going to cut out. We sort of discussed that amongst ourselves, and then Jo reads each draft - she reads the screenplay, and she said, "You know, I wouldn't do that if I were you. Or you can, but if you get to make a seventh film, you'll be tied in knots. It will cause you some difficulties, so you might want to -" I can see your mind racing, Mr. Veritaserum.com. This man probably knows Potter better than anybody in this room - no disrespect. So she made sure that that character - she didn't make sure, she just recommended it.
Stephen Schaefer of The Boston Herald: What character was it?
DH: I thought you might ask that question. I'm not going to say.
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