This series, part of our Forever Young Family & Children’s Series, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Harry Potter book series.
When it was announced that there would be several live-action HARRY POTTER films “hysteria” may be too mild a word to describe the excitement. The books were in the hands of millions of kids and adults, and the adulation for the characters led to heavy speculation about who could possibly portray the titular Harry. In 2015, director Chris Columbus spoke to Vanity Fair about the grueling casting process, and how he came to a final decision.
Columbus said, “I was pursuing Dan [Radcliffe] from the beginning, maybe being about eight weeks into the casting process. I was getting frustrated of seeing thousands of kids… I was looking for someone who sort of had a haunted quality about them, a complexity at age 11. Then I saw a DVD copy of [the BBC film version of] DAVID COPPERFIELD. Dan didn’t have a lot to do in it, but something about that performance struck me, and I felt that this is the kid who needs to play Harry Potter. At least I wanna meet him. I became obsessed with trying to find him.
When we did his screen test, I was tremendously moved by what I saw on-screen, as was David Heyman [the producer] and also JK Rowling. I showed her the screen test, and she said, ‘That’s exactly the way I envisioned him.’”
