Felton on Being a Git and Beating Up Harry Potter

Tom Felton, who portrays Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, recently spoke to Reader’s Digest about filming Half-Blood Prince. In the interview, he talks about how he gets to break Harry’s nose, act like a git, his fellow-co-stars, and the fans.

Here are some excerpts:

“This was the first film where I was involved in the filming from start to finish and got to work closely with actors like Michael Gambon,” he says. “You have a certain sympathy for Draco because he’s just a child whose father Lucius has been in prison and has a huge mental battle with the task he’s been given. But this time he doesn’t just express his fragility by calling Harry an idiot. He breaks his nose.” Tom warms to his theme. “Filming that was cool. We had Dan [Daniel Radcliffe] lying on the floor with my foot just above his head, not quite hit­ting him. There were a couple of times I was tempted to lay the…nah, bless him, I didn’t touch him. He clearly loves playing the bad guy. “I get to act like a complete git. Who wouldn’t want that? It’s great fun scar­ing kids. I did an interview with a class­room of about 12 of them the other day and there was ten minutes of silence when they were keeping their eyes on me, not daring to speak. When young­sters are invited on set, they run up and hug Dan, but I don’t get any of that.

He feels that his co-stars have done a wonderful job in keeping their heads on straight and hopes that the fans attraction to Draco is aesthetic rather than an attraction to the character’s attitude.

The Half-Blood Prince, with its dra­matic deaths and romantic liaisons for several of the characters, is a grown-up film, reflecting how Radcliffe, Rupert Grint , Emma Watson and the rest of the cast have now become young adults. Tom is pleasantly surprised by how well everyone has turned out. “It seemed a certain bet that one of them would end up being a wild card, photographed brothel in Amsterdam. But they’ve all got their heads screwed on. I half-expected Dan to be a bit up in the air with it all, but he’s untainted. He never spends any money. You go round his house to watch The Apprentice and you could be with any other guy.”
It does seem, however, that girls like a bad boy. “Oh, there’s plenty of interest, not from actual women, but from the youngsters of the world. I like to think that it’s a purely aesthetic attraction, rather than Draco’s personality.” But although mischief flashes across his face as he describes his dubious alter ego, one is struck by how well­adjusted and charming he is for a young man who’s spent his adolescence as a world-famous film character. ”As an actor, you get pleasure from doing something that’s completely different to who you are. I occasionally find myself acting like Draco, though it’s usually nothing magical, but some­thing to do with roads. My girlfriend Jade lives in north London and I live near Dorking so I spend a lot of time on the M25. Junction 9 at Leatherhead­that can be a killer.”

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