This series, part of our Forever Young Family & Children’s Series, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Harry Potter book series.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the penultimate book of the Harry Potter series and filming the adaptation prompted a lot of reflection from the cast and crew who had been working on the film for eight years. In an interview, Emma Watson spoke about her growth throughout the series and finding a new mentor while filming.
She told IndieLondon, “I think when we first started people forget we were so young, we were nine or 10, and we very much relied on Chris Columbus. We were so young he would sometimes switch off the sound and would direct us over the take and add it [the dialogue] in later, so as the camera was rolling he would be directing us through it. We needed that much guidance, especially as we were working with so many special effects, and so many things were going on — animals, magic, everything and we had to act on top of that. Rupert [Grint] and I were totally new to this experience. I think the first two films were just getting to grips with the idea of being on a film set and being an actress. That was enough.
By the third film I think… when I was younger I think I probably was Hermione, I probably didn’t really need to act too much. I did a caricature of who I was myself, so it didn’t require too much thought. As I got older and she’s become a much more complex character I needed more guidance. I guess now I like to think of myself as an actress, I think of going through all of the films as my kind of film academy, the way that I’ve learnt. I’m lucky that I’ve worked with so many different directors with very different styles and with a lot of different actors. We get asked a lot if the actors give us any advice, but I don’t think they have particularly. Helena Bonham Carter was the first person I really connected with, she’s as close as anyone has come to being a mentor to me, because I think she probably had quite a similar experience to me when she was younger.”