Leaky
December 4, 2004 The Leaky Cauldron
Every once in a while an interview comes along where little to no real interviewing happens. Sometimes the interview subjects launch into such natural, relaxed conversation that the best thing any reporter can do is sit back, press “record” and have fun.
At the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD launch, a few hours into the party, I had such an experience. The Harry Potter cast really are a bunch of varied, interesting and fun-loving kids, so a few hours into the party, when everyone was fed and watered and had explored all the goodies (explained in the last report) the party had to offer, a real casual atmosphere arose and I was able to have some good conversations to bring back to you guys. David Thewlis explained to me how much he’d love to be in HP5, but he’s nervous about a large project he’s got on the line conflicting (he wouldn’t say what the project was, only that it was quite big). As reported elsehwere, Dan Radcliffe did leave early because he had work early the next morning. Tom Felton hung around with his brother and Emma Watson, James and Oliver Phelps were with their girlfriends (Heidi and Rachel respectively…I think…), and people in general just relaxed into the coziness of the Divination Room in which we were set.
So when I approached Matt Lewis and Alfie Enoch (who play Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter films) and asked for a TLC interview, I had a feeling it wouldn’t turn out like most interviews. And boy was I right.
There are things any reader needs to know before reading this. The first is that in England, a “public” school is what most other people refer to as “private”; so though Alfie Enoch goes to a proper English boarding school, it’s technically called “public.” That’ll be important. Another is that Alfie, although he often gets poked at for his Proper Englishness, is really easygoing and fun. And the last warning is that these two are like a miniature Abbott & Costello routine.
TLC: So, hi guys.
Alfie Enoch: Hello.
Matthew Lewis: Hello!
TLC: How are you doing this evening?
ML: I?m doing good, yeah.
TLC: Have you seen the DVD yet?
AE: I can’t say I have, actually, no.
ML: I’m getting mine today and I’m quite excited to see it actually, yeah.
TLC: What are you most excited about seeing?
AE: The special features, they’re really good in this one.
ML: Anything with me in it.
[Laughter.]
TLC: Fair enough! What’s going on with the fourth movie, what are you doing?
ML: We’re fliming it. Right.
AE: Well, you’re not, technically…
AE: Right, I’m not, very good, very perceptive.
ML: No, we’re about halfway through I think, I got told earlier.
AE: Half a month ago, we were like at the halfway point, that?s the schedule.
ML: But the schedule is rubbish, so… .
TLC: What have you filmed so far?
ML: What have we done, Alfie?
AE: Quite a lot ? we’ve done a lot of Great Hall scenes.
ML: I’m not sure how much we?re allowed to give away because they got quite tight this year. I?m not even sure we?re allowed to say exactly what we shot.
TLC: Well, I know you’re dancing.
ML: Yeah
AE: Yeah
ML: I got a tango, yeah.
TLC: Have you ever tangoed before?
ML: I have not, and I was quite proud of it, up until they ?
AE: Until they changed the moves.
ML: and now ?
TLC: How are you as a tango artist?
ML: I don’t think very good at all.
AE: You should go into dance.
ML: Uhhhhh…no. Personally I don?t think I?m very good. I?m sure Alfie’s excellent though.
AE: Why would you say that?
ML: It’s because the tango’s gotta be a public school thing, I think.
AE: Oh, no, let’s not do this again.
TLC: You go to public school?
AE: I go to Westminster, and it?s a big joke [on set]. [posh voice] Ah, he goes to Westminster-
ML: -he MUST be able to ballroom dance.
AE: [mocking] He must be able to ballroom dance.
ML: Ballroom daahhnce.
AE: He speaks quite correctly, and doesn’t ever bend his back, he has a straight posture.
ML: I mean LOOK at that! If you guys could see this ?
AE: I don?t have a straight posture!
ML: He plays pool with the straightest back you’ve ever seen, he bends over, but he?s just got a straight back, it?s excellent!
AE: That?s because you go from the hips!
TLC: They teach you that at Westminster?
AE: N- [laughing] no, we don?t have posture classes, it’s not that bad, but they do, the thing is, quite embarrassingly, they do teach us that, for rowing.
ML: Do you got those boards the Victorians used to use for straightening the back –
AE: Nooo, they just encourage a straight back.
TLC: They yell at you in the hallways for slouching?
ML: “Straighten your back, man!”
AE: It?s not that bad! They don’t bring out the cane, beat you!
ML: “I’m going to have to teach you to straighten your back, laddie!”
AE: Seriously, I?m going to be the one laughing when you?ve got a bent back when you?re older, walking around hunched over.
ML: Ooooh!
TLC: You guys seem like really good friends, it?s cute!
AE: He just gets at me!
ML: I don’t get at you, you get at me!
AE: I get at you, why, because you say grass.
ML: Because I say grass, yeah.
TLC: What?s ‘grahss’? [confused looks]
AE: Grass ?
ML: Green ? grows in the ground.
TLC: Oh! That’s what you mean. It sounds so different from an American ear.
AE: I couldn’t understand it either!
ML: Very amusing. Because you see, up north, we say it right and these guys don’t understand it ?
AE: That?s funny, because see, we made up the language properly.
ML: Spell grass.
AE: Grass [grahss]. G-R-A-S-S.
ML: How would you say that?
TLC: Well I’m from New York, so I’d say grass. [“Greass.”]
AE: [mimics] Grass.
ML: That?s more like mine than yours [Alfie’s].
AE: Yeah.
TLC: OK, so what’s “we” – you’re from where?
AE: London
ML: I’m from Leeds! Quite possibly the best place in the world.
AE: At least 200 miles north.
TLC: Ah.
ML: It?s great.
AE: They get, like, snow up there.
ML: Yes, we get, like, snow up there.
TLC: [laughter] That white stuff, that falls to the ground.
ML: Yes, it’s not cocaine.
AE: It’s because almost in Scotland.
ML: Almost in Scotland.
AE: You?re almost in Scotland.
TLC: Do you get as much rain as ?
ML: I?m nowhere near Scotland. Sorry, just had to get that out of the way.
TLC: You say that like it’s a point of pride.
ML: I?m nowhere near Scotland. No, Scotland’s all right. I like Scotland. No, we get a lot of rain.
TLC: All your Scottish fans’ gone. That’s it, it’s over.
ML: No, really, I’ve been in holiday, in Scotland before. I nearly died on that trip! I really enjoyed it.
TLC: He likes Scotland, he swears. You could be the Scotland tourism boy.
ML: Scotland’s excellent! I went snowboarding in Scotland, it was brilliant.Go, it’s very cheap, lovely!
[A waitress arrives with some bizarre fried balls of something to offer.]
ML: They’re offering us – what is it?
TLC: Amaretto rice pudding with raspberry jam.
ML: With raspberry jam.
TLC: Very posh.
AE: It?s rice pudding. In a ball.
ML: It looks like a mini kiev.
AE: It?s rice pudding, look! [Alfie has just taken a bite.]
ML: It?s rice pudding, in breadcrumbs.
TLC: It?s a rice pudding ball.
AE: It?s a rice pudding ball. Surrounded with breadcrumbs.
TLC: I?m Italian, rice balls are part of my life.
ML: I think they should make these more mainstream.
TLC: I think so.
ML: Iceland would just snap that up if they knew.
TLC: Iceland? Why?
AE: Not the country! The shop.
ML: Do you not have Iceland in America?
TLC: We might?
AE: Morrisons, do you have Morrisons?
ML: We have Morrisons?
AE: Morrisons is American?
ML: Morrisons is not!
TLC: I am extremely unhip, just putting that on the table…
AE: I thought it was the Morrison’s chain ?
ML: Morrison’s is English
TLC: What do they sell?
ML: Novelties, like Iceland.
TLC: We have Safeway, a Walmart, a Target, and lot of chains.
[Five minutes of conversation about supermarkets…after which Melissa changes the subject.]
TLC: [To Alfie] Have you read, on JK Rowling’s site, all the new information about Dean?
AE: Everyone says I should read this. I can?t find it!
ML: It would help, I think!
AE: I think it would, add some more insight.
TLC: Dean thinks he’s Muggle-born, but he is actually half-blooded.
AE: Is he?
TLC: Yep.
AE: See, this is all news to me. Everyone’s like, “Have you seen it?” and I was like, “No, I tried to look for it, I couldn’t find it, can you tell me about it?” and everyone’s like “No you have to go see it!”
ML: You support West Ham though.
TLC: I’ll tell you about it [and Melissa mucks this up a little, but it was a very quick explanation and she hadn’t read it in a while]; his father, he told his wife that he was a Muggle because he didn’t want to join the dark forces, and he went out and privately fought the forces and died doing it, and his wife never found out.
AE: Does he know this?
TLC: Dean? No. And he was supposed to find out in book two, but she changed her mind.
AE: Oh right. Do you reckon he will find out?
TLC: I think maybe?
AE: It’s gotta be said somewhere. It can’t be like, story that was never a story.
TLC: It’s interesting, she said she sort of sacrificed Dean?s discovery for Neville?s.
ML: Sorry about that, man. Please don’t hurt me.
AE: I think this is the problem. I think Dean has a far more interesting story, but no, let?s talk about Neville. Just because he gets the sympathy vote, he has a name called Longbottom.
TLC: It’s quite a name.
ML: I think they just want more of that lovely Leeds accent.
AE: [laughs] Oh, yeah, that’s funny – grass!
TLC: He does say it like a New Yorker.
ML: Grass.
TLC: Greass.
AE: Grass. [Grace.]
TLC: The greass is green.
AE: Graahss. The grahhs is always green.
ML: Yo, man. Yo.
TLC: You guys do this on set, all the time?
AE: We have arguments about grass. What?s the other one he says? He says another silly thing.
ML: What, what?
AE: You say something else that’s silly.
ML: Silly? What do I say that’s silly?
AE: See, he thinks it?s funny. He doesn?t realize that people don?t know how to speak correctly. Just because I go to a public school ?
ML: OK, um, what else do I say that’?s silly. Gloucester (like “closter”), I guess you’d consider that silly.
AE: Gloucester.
ML: I don’t say “the” either.
TLC: You don’t say “the”?
ML: No, if I said, “Oh, look what?s on the window,” I’d say “Look what’s on’t window.”
TLC: On window?
AE: He says O-N-apostrophe-T, which is quite frankly a disgrace.
TLC: Mr. Proper Westminster says that it’s a disgrace!
ML: What?s that?
AE: Where?s the definite article? The definite article’s “the.” “On’t!” See, they teach you Latin [at my school], they teach you Greek, they teach you to correctly use English as well. But there?s not a class.
TLC: You’ve got the most Hogwartsy outlook on everybody. Do you ever say to them, I know what all this English boarding school stuff is about?
AE: Yes, “Boarding school should be more like this!”
TLC: Is it actually boarding school?
AE: No, well, you can be a day student but I’m a boarder.
TLC: How often are you there?
AE: I go, it’s quite nice, because it’s in London unlike all the other schools, you just go off to the countryside and come back home once a term. We get to go home on the weekends. We’re right in the middle of London anyway so we go out whenever we want. At least there’s a nightlife in London.
ML: Actually, Actually ?
AE: He’s going to refer to a magazine article ?
ML: No, I?m not. No, really I?m not.
TLC: A magazine article, I’m curious?
ML: Well, it just said that Leeds was a better place than Britain…. I wasn’t actually going to go there, but…. But anyway it said it had the second best nightlife in Britain, after Edinburgh.
TLC: Leeds. And what makes Leeds so great with the nightlife?
ML: Actually it’s brilliant. It’s the best place in the world.
TLC: What have you done there?
ML: What have I done there? I was born there!
AE: He’s just upset that he found out that Leeds has a nightlife, no one ever noticed it.
ML: Ha!
TLC: So, this has been a nice night.
ML: It has.
TLC: What did your fortune [handwriting analysis] say?
ML: My fortune? Here we go. [Gets up and takes it out.]
AE: He’s quite happy about this.
ML: I wrote, ‘My name is Matthew Lewis, and I am the best.’
AE: Clearly egotistical, for a start. That’s what I could draw from this.
ML: He said that I was quick in wit.
AE: He’s quick in wit. How is that [his writing sample] witty?
ML: Shush!
AE: Maybe it’s ironic.
ML: He said no one else does their Ms like that, that I’m an original, which, I might add, is rock ‘n’ roll. He said that I was, this peak of the M here, this is the public, this is me. I want to impress the public, therefore I should be an actor.
TLC: What’s with the line through the M?
AE: He drew the line. It’s the graph, ti’s the positive gradient.
AE: He said that this thing here, I do this extra line, he said that was confidence and that showed, and also that I am perceptive and good memory and he said that the next bit about me being the best in the world was completely right.
TLC: So you have nothing to do with Neville, whatsoever.
ML: [laughter.] No.
TLC: But Neville’s the best, Neville’s going to work it out, you wait.
ML: Hmmm’
TLC: I think so. You don’t think so?
ML: No.
TLC: What do you think is in his future?
ML: Neville’s future? I think he’s going to die. Well everybody dies. He’s going to die quite miserably.
TLC: Why, how so?
ML: I don’t know, I’m just guessing he’s going to die. I’d like him to die, I don’t know why.
TLC: Death scenes?
ML: Oh that would be cool, wouldn’t it, I hadn’t even thought of that.
TLC: Death scenes are cool.
ML: Yeah.
AE: Looking forward to the death.
ML: Can’t wait for the death!
TLC: What about you, with Dean?
AE: I think he clearly should become a professional football player.
[All three of us]: For West Ham!
ML: That’s not professional football! Actually for any West Ham supporters, I didn’t say that.