Growing up at Hogwarts: Watson and Grint share special memories
BY DENNIS KING
NEW YORK – As the three young wizards that we’ve watched grow up on screen over eight Harry Potter movies mark the end of their 12-year journey with the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” one was conspicuous by his absence in the franchise’s final U.S. publicity push.
As Warner Bros. orchestrated a jam-packed premiere weekend at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, complete with red-carpet hoopla and press conferences for assembled national media, Daniel Radcliffe was busy across town singing and dancing his way through a matinee performance of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” his second tour on the Broadway stage after a well-received role in “Equus” in 2007.
But with Harry Potter himself unable to meet the press, his co-stars Emma “Hermione Granger” Watson and Rupert “Ron Weasley” Grint soldiered on like the two musketeers, patiently fielding endless questions about how it feels to see the series of magical movies drawn from J.K. Rowling’s best-selling novels come to an end.
Both seemed subdued and wryly philosophical about this milestone in their careers and lives as they walked into a hotel ballroom packed with press.
Watson, looking very chic with her hair cropped close and wearing a fluffy, black and white Givenchy outfit, exuded the poised confidence of the articulate, Ivy League student she is (she’s studying at Brown University).
“This film was obviously incredibly challenging for me,” she said. “It really pushed me as an actress, but at the same time I was able to use a lot of my own genuine emotion that I felt about loss and all of it coming to an end. I was able to bring how I was feeling to the role.
“A perfect example of that was the scene where we stand on the bridge after the battle (at Hogwarts),” she said. “And I remember feeling exactly how I guess Hermione would be feeling, which is kind of, wow, this is all coming to an end, look at all we’ve achieved. The set was actually built looking out over Leavesden Studios, which is where I grew up essentially and spent the last 12 years. So, not much acting required, really. It was all just there for me.”
Grint, his ginger hair shaggy, was decked out in an oversized white T-shirt with an “I’m With You” logo. He seemed as boyish and appealingly goofy as Ron Weasley ever was.
“It’s been a very weird time, really, kind of accepting the end,” he said. “Yeah, there’s that one scene where it’s the three of us after the battle, and we’re walking on the bridge and the castle was destroyed behind us. There’s almost this kind of parallel at that moment with our lives, really. It’s over for us, as well.
“We finished filming a year ago and I was left with this quite empty feeling,” Grint continued. “And it’s taken me some time to fully accept that it’s over. And with the London premiere a few days ago, I got really emotional. I’m not usually affected by stuff like this in that way. But it’s going to take me some time to really let go of this because it really has been my childhood. For it to come down to this last film, it feels really weird.”
Watson recalled the last scene that she, Grint and Radcliffe shot together as being slightly anticlimactic.
“The last shot we did was this kind of strange moment where we dive into the fireplace in the Ministry of Magic,” she said. “It was actually for Part 1, not Part 2. And so Dan, Rupert and I, one by one, jumped on a blue safety mat, basically, and that was the shot.
“And it seemed like a strange one to go out on,” she said. “But actually David (director David Yates) made the point that we were like leaping into the unknown. It was like a perfect metaphor for what we were all about to go into. I can’t tell you how I felt when we were shooting it. I think I was just sort of numb.”
After growing up with and embodying the characters of Hermione and Ron for so many years, both Watson and Grint profess to feeling close bonds to their fictional counterparts and sometimes even feeling certain traits creeping over into their off-screen lives.
“I’ve always felt this close connection to Ron, even from reading the books,” Grint said. “After 12 years playing this same guy every day, I think you do just naturally morph into him. And we have become this kind of ‘Ronpert’ thing, which I think will stay with me for a while. I think there will always be a bit of Ron in me for the rest of my life.”
Watson, too, said he shares a lot of real-life traits with Hermione.
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