Attitude Magazine June 2012
It’s nearly two years since the wrapped the final Harry Potter film and then unlikely hero Neville Longbottom, aka actor Matthew Lewis, has stage and TV work under his belt. The 22-year-old has starred in an Agatha Christie play and has an upcoming Brit flick, but you’ve most likely seen him in Kay Mellor’s lottery-winner drama The Syndicate, where he proved that he’s more than just a figment of JK Rowling’s imagination.
Viewers may have noticed that he’s changed somewhat, too. The Daily Mail certainly noticed, writing rather cruelly (but truthfully): ‘Ten years ago, Matthew Lewis was cast as bumbling, plump Hogwarts student Neville Longbottom. But after going through an awkward teenage phase as he filmed the Harry Potter movies, the actor has really grown into a handsome young man’.
You’d think claims that he’s made a ‘magical transformation from geeky Neville to red-carpey hunk’ would feel-as much an insult as a compliment but Lewis isn’t fussed. ‘It is flattering and it’s very humbling,’ he says in his broad Yorkshire. ‘I’m not going to sit here and say it’s horrendous. It’s ego-boosting but it’s not what I got into acting for’. The new ‘hunky’ Lewis doesn’t feel too protective of his younger ‘geeky’ self and he laughs off rumours that he’s had plastic surgery and a Hollywood smile fitted.
Not so – Lewis has just grown into his looks, lost the puppy fat and worn a nasty brace. ‘I had this thing called an aligner, which was fucking painful,’ he says. And there’s further pain courtesy of Leeds Rhinos, who are kicking the local lad into shape with some hardcore training. ‘I knew a few of the guys down there,’ he explains, ‘and I said I had to put a bit of muscle on for a role I was doing, so I trained with them. It’s tough. I’m not with the first team because, obviously they’re professional rugby players, but their trainer comes in the gym with me and we go through it’.
As we can tell, Neville Longbottom is long gone, but Lewis still has fond memories of his time on set. He forged great friendships with the other kid actors (‘I talk to Tom and Alfie and saw Dan in a musical in New York last summer’) had his eardrum perforated by Helena Bonham Carter (‘She was pretty mortified’) and learned from some of the UK’s finest actors(‘Me and Alan Rickman sat down in his trailer and chatted about where I should go next and what I should do’). After 10 years in the same role, though, it’s time to move on. ‘The great thing as an actor is that I don’t know what my agent is going to call me with next. She could be saying, “You’re going to go and be a secret agent”, or it could be anything and that’s exciting. But when you’re doing Potter, it’s the same thing, so I was ready to go out and do something different.’
His first post-Potter film release will be Wasteland, a low-budget British movie in which Lewis will again share a screen with Timothy Spall. It’s quite a habit of his – co-starring with acting legends, learning from them all the way. Not that it makes him any more confident in his own ability. He admits he’s ‘fretting the whole time’, thinking, ‘Is this any good? Is this shit?’ adding, ‘I grew up on the Potter set and I didn’t expect to come out of that as this fully rounded actor. I never went to drama school, I’m really on the bottom rung and I have to prove myself and learn as I go along.’
It’s the kind of self-doubt that characterizes the best actors and suggests he is a thesp on the up, not just a red-carpet hunk.
Wasteland is out later this year