He’s the wizarding world’s favourite magical underdog but Matthew Lewis finally gets his chance to shine in the final Harry Potter film.
The Leeds-born actor plays bumbling wizard Neville Longbottom in the popular franchise and after more than 10 years in the background, the 22-year-old played a pivotal role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
Despite his character playing a major and influential part in the series of books, many of Lewis’ key moments were not transported to the big screen in the previous films.
Lewis said it was hard to have scenes cut from the franchise but said his high-profile role in the final film made up for the previous disappointments.
“This has been an absolutely fantastic picture to shoot for me,” he said.
“You sit there and read the book you go ‘That’s great’, you read the script you go ‘Wow it’s still in there’, and then you think ‘Will we shoot it’ and then you shoot it and you think well ‘That’s three out of four’ and it could end up on the cutting-room floor. But it is all in there.
“Even if it doesn’t make it into the film, I just like being on a film set and working, I like being busy. Half-Blood Prince was a hard shoot because I was in a lot of it but I was in the background and I only had four lines and only two made the film and that’s tough for any actor.
“You just have to take a step back and appreciate it and then when you get a film like this one, you just make sure you bloody enjoy it. I got to do everything this year, the action the drama, the humour again. It was great.”
Lewis said he never envied the stardom the films’ leading actors — Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson — had experienced and admitted if Hollywood didn’t come calling he would “be happy doing TV in Yorkshire” for the rest of his life.
“I lead two lives and I get the best of both worlds. I get to travel around the world, I have met Paul McCartney. All these amazing things that have happened in my life and when it is finished I go back to Leeds and I have all the same friends as before, I go to Elland Road to watch Leeds United and I go to the pub. I’m relatively left alone, people do recognise me but I love meeting fans and they are so, so lovely, it is never a chore.
“The paps don’t follow me around and no one scrutinises my behaviour… It is a big thing … Dan, Rupert and Emma wherever they go, they are being watched and stuff and it hasn’t changed a single one of them. That is real testament to them and I think it goes to show that you can be an actor on that scale with that level of fame, be followed everywhere and you don’t have to be a knobhead.”