David Heyman Offers New Insight Into Challenges of “Deathly Hallows: Part 2” Epilogue Scene

Aug 06, 2011

Posted by: John Admin

DH Film

The LA Times has published a new interview with Harry Potter producer David Heyman about the challenges the cast and crew faced when filming the epilogue scene in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”

On the decision to not cast older actors to play Harry, Ron and Hermione:

“After all we have been through with these characters, the way that a generation has grown up with them, they need to be the ones on screen when it’s time to bring it to a close’ said Heyman, who was a key decision-maker back when Radcliffe and his costars were first cast in their roles back in 2000. “There’s an expectation ” even if it is not articulated ” that they need to be on the screen when it’s coming to an end.”

Why the first epilogue shoot didn’t work:

“Rupert looked like he was about 75 years old with the triple chin and the belly, he looked like he had really lived as a lush’ Heyman said. “We knew we needed to rework the makeup. There was another problem, too, shooting at the train station proved quite challenging for some of the younger kids who played the children of Harry, Ron and Hermione. It was really noisy every few minutes a train from Liverpool would pull in on one of the other tracks. We only had our one track closed.”

How re-shooting the epilogue scene at Leavesden Studios “made all the difference in the world:”

Heyman has said the hushed control of the Leavesden soundstages provided “the place to get the needed intimacy” but the timing also created the unexpected benefit of making the epilogue the “true” last scene made by the young stars. Film scenes are rarely shot in the same order they are shown on-screen but in this instance the farewell feeling brought an evocative gravity to the day.

“We should have thought to film it last in the first place’ Heyman said Wednesday. “It created a reality of sorts to the feelings in the scene and in the air. And I think now we’ve heard from the rest of the world that it worked. In the end, we used some shots from King’s Cross, too, to make a hybrid. There was a little bit of CG as well. The combination is subtle, which it needed to be.”





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