Throughout the years we have interviewed “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe, he has always been more than happy to chat with press at great length and has even gone as far as coming in on his day off to accommodate reporters. The actor didn’t disappoint once again and candidly talked to ComingSoon.net about what the final battle scene will be like in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
**This interview contains spoilers about the ending of the film**
Q: There are moments that take place away from the battle. How does that work into the final battle? How is it paced?
Radcliffe: I think at that moment it starts off that Harry kind of splits off from Ron and Hermione and you sort of follow the stories separately and they’re intercut. I mean, I don’t actually know how long it will end up being between the finding of the Diadem and the sort of ultimate fight with Voldemort. But, I mean, you certainly won’t notice the time go by. It’s so nonstop, the second part of the film that you won’t have time to think about the pacing. It’ll just be happening to you.
Q: Speaking of the final battle with Voldemort, Harry has a really interesting sort of emotional journey in the story because it’s really unique that he comes to a place where he decides that he has to sacrifice himself. Can you talk about getting that story on film?
Radcliffe: Yeah, I mean, to be honest, that scene and particularly that whole sequence is obviously about self sacrifice, but that scene in the woods and the actual walking into the forest was always going to be my favorite. It was the one I was most looking forward to filming ’cause I’ve seen it as being one of the key moments in the film. And yes, and naturally I can away from that day feeling kind of completely like I had not done well enough, you know, or anything. So, it’s very hard to judge how scenes like that went. I know that I certainly gave it everything and me and David worked very well together. So, I’ve done the best I can I think in it, but it was a funny scene to film. I think when you put that much pressure on yourself, it’s sort of, you’re not really aware even of what’s really – the whole day sometimes becomes about, “This is the most important thing of the film. We have to get this right.” Sometimes, that pressure maybe becomes a bit like it takes away your creativity a bit and you can’t really, it’s harder to judge what you’re doing I think.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about the Snape death scene, filming that?
Radcliffe: Yeah, we did it quite recently. It was pretty violent. I was impressed. Yeah, the Nagini offs him and it’s a great scene. There’s this great part of the thing we do in this film which I love which is we keep saying, you know, the scene takes place in the boathouse which I don’t know if there are pictures of that around. No, there aren’t. But, we keep talking about the boathouse. “Oh, I know where he is, he’s in the boathouse.” The boathouse? We never mentioned the boathouse before in any of the other films. I never even knew Hogwarts had a boathouse, but that’s where it takes place and it’s a great set and yeah, so it’s a very impressive scene. Alan plays it wonderfully and beautifully all the stuff about my mother, and it’s played as you would expect him to, you know, wonderfully. Yeah, it was a pleasure to be there to see it happen, I suppose, not to see it happen, but to see Alan give that performance.
Q: Speaking of Snape, considering that he’s always had pretty significant feelings of anger and hatred towards Harry, do you think his love for Lily adequately explains his actions and the risk that he takes to help Harry?
Radcliffe: I’m not in a position to judge because I don’t know how fortunately it is impossible to ever feel what somebody else is feeling, but supposedly people do, people absolutely do. People will do incredible things for love, and particularly for unrequited love. And, you know, yeah, I mean, I don’t think that it’s the course of action everybody would take, but it eventually does turn out to have been a very noble one, and one that Harry can, I think completely understand Snape’s feelings towards him personally after what he sees in the Penseive.
Q: So Part 2 is pretty much nonstop from what you’re saying. This is probably the biggest, most epic action that you’ve done in the entire series so far. How do you keep the character, while doing these big action scenes and having these big moments?
Radcliffe: It’s funny because the character of Harry is a character that people associate with being in action scenes, so I don’t think it’s that much of a challenge for them or me really to accept the same character exists in that kind of more physical context. I don’t think really anybody – that jars with anyone in particular.
Q: You’re in these big scenes. You’re hitting marks and it’s more about the physical action as opposed to the character stuff sometimes. How do you balance that as an actor?
Radcliffe: In a way, that can be quite good because if you’re not thinking about the lines and all that stuff and you’re actually given something else to concentrate on, that you have to get right and that is much more important than the acting, it’s much more important to make sure you are available to do another take rather than jumping off a roof wrong or something, I don’t know. So, but I don’t know. It’s just not something that you really think about any differently to any other scene. It’s not something that I have to switch into another sort of mode particularly for. And as I say, it can, because you’re not focusing and overanalyzing and being overly critical of yourself ’cause you’re thinking about the more important stuff, it can actually kind of free all that up a bit I think.
