The LA Times reports today that “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” has been nominated for an Excellence in Production Design Award by the Art Directors Guild of America. Harry Potter production designer Stuart Craig, who has previously won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Art Directors Guild, is nominated in the fantasy film category. …read more!

As it is now midnight in the U.K., the calendar at JKRowling.com has flipped to the 9th of January and notes the birthday of Severus Snape. Here at Leaky, we ask you to join us in raising a glass to the ex-Potions Master. Happy birthday, Severus Snape!

“If you thought [“Half-Blood Prince”] was dark, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” commented Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) when interviewed recently alongside co-star Matt Lewis (Neville Longbottom). A recording of the interview, which aired yesterday on BBC Radio One, can be heard in the middle of the show from 1:06 to 1:17, via the BBC iPlayer. …read more!

Today we also ask you to join us in sending happy birthday wishes to Imelda Staunton. The actress, who plays Professor Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films, is celebrating her 54th birthday today. Happy birthday, Imelda!

Another fun cast interview has surfaced, this time with James and Oliver Phelps on Scholastic.com. The actors responsible for portraying Fred and George Weasley in the Harry Potter films reminisce about the auditions for their parts, speaking in unison and souvenirs smuggled from the set. Quotage: Q: In the films you guys speak in unison. …read more!

Potential nominations for the “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” film continue to be in the air, as the BAFTA organization has included the sixth Potter film in their longlist of potential nominees in a total of seven categories. The British Academy Film and Television Arts list of the first round picks by the 6,000 …read more!

We have a brief follow up for you this morning on the recent images of Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) from the Spring/Summer 2010 Burberry fashion advertising campaign that have been appearing in magazines and online. Thanks to reader Roonwit and our Image Galleries crew, we now have a behind the scenes video of Miss Watson …read more!

This afternoon at 12 pm Eastern time, PotterCast, our Harry Potter podcast, will be hosting a live recording over on our LiveStream channel. Please join the PotterCasters for their first show of the new year as they discuss the very latest in Harry Potter news. Listening is easy; simply log on to Livestream.com and listen …read more!

TotalFilm.com has published the nominations for their 2010 TotalFilm.com Movie Blog Awards, and have included a nod to The Leaky Cauldron in the Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Blog category. We at Leaky are greatly honored to receive this nomination, and to be among such other popular blog sites nominated by TotalFilm.com. The winners of the 2010 TotalFilm.com …read more!

The “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” film has been chosen as one of the seven finalists in the Achievement in Visual Effects category for the 82nd Academy Awards. As readers will recall, in December the sixth Potter film was among fifteen semifinalists included in the short list of potential VFX nominees by the The …read more!