IMO, Matthew Lewis as Neville RUINED the last movie, his acting was so wooden and dreadful. He seemed to have belonged in Hollyoaks rather than the biggest movie series of all time.
And I still haven't gotten over them cutting out McGonagall, Slughorn and Kingsley vs Voldemort on DH2.
I loved Helena Botham Carter as Bellatrix. Exactly what I imagined her in my head. I felt that Rupert Grint was the best of the 3 acting wise, but the 3 of them were all likeable for me even though they weren't the best of actors.
I did prefer Harris' Dumbledore, just had a more subtle power and was friendlier like in the books than Gambon's one.
I think the older characters were generally cast well (with the exception of Lupin and Slughorn) but I was not a fan of the saying for the young characters at all. Daniel Radcliffe actually puts me off watching these films again as he is nothing like the Harry Potter I imagined from the books.
I felt Sirius was far too old. I always imagined him as a young, boyish looking, rugged "cool" guy and yet he was pretty much an old man in the movies.
Maggie Smith was phenomenal as McGonagall - completely epitomised the role IMO.
I thought Miriam Margoyles was the perfect Sprout as well. The only person in the cast I didn't like was Bonnie Wright - her Ginny is irritating - you shouldn't actively NOT WANT her and Harry to get together but alas, her acting makes you do!
I thought on the whole, the casting was great. There are very few people that I find to be clearly miscast, and a great many more that are inspired choices.
The best pieces of casting:
- Evanna Lynch - Luna. Even JKR has said that Evanna just is Luna in every way, and was absolutely born to play her. Exactly how I imagined her, almost uncannily so.
- Helena Bonham Carter - Belllatrix. Quite high profile casting, but inspired. The role fits her like a glove.
- Brendan Gleeson - Mad-Eye Moody - takes what is a fairly tiresome character in the book into a fascinating, genuinely engaging character in the movie. In fact, I would say he's the standout of the movie.
- David Thewlis - Lupin - not at all what I was expecting at first, but he is without doubt one of my favourite performers of the series and now I can't picture Lupin as anyone else.
The worst choices:
- Jim Broadbent - Slughorn - the man did a good job and is without question a very fine actor indeed, but he just doesn't suit this role. Slughorn needs to have his wits about him a bit more.
- Michael Gambon - Dumbledore. It pains me to say this, because again, Michael Gambon is a great actor and Dumbledore is a wonderful character, but his performance pales in comparison to Richard Harris. The "trophy cabinet scene" is an unforgivable incident.
- Bill Nighy - Scrimgeour - one of my favourite actors, but he doesn't suit the role at all. He was nothing at all like the Scrimgeour I imagined. I think the only reason Bill got the part was due to his well-publicised comment that he was the only British actor left not to have made an appearance.
I should, however, add that while many characters are very well cast, the performances did not in any war do their characters justice. Bonnie Wright in particular lacks anything interesting about Ginny in the books, and this means that in the films, it's inexplicable why Harry would choose Ginny over the likes of Cho and Luna, who are heaps more interesting and who Daniel Radcliffe had more chemistry with.
I would say the same for Roger Lloyd Pack as Barty Crouch Sr, Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter, and Chris Rankin as Percy Weasley - they were all well cast but gave poor performances.
The adult cast in every film was perfect for me. Each and every one of them fitted into the role and I find it difficult to imagine other actors in those roles.
The three child leads were another matter. Each of them looked the part - still amazes me how they fitted with my mental image of the kids the first time I read the books - but it's a shame they didn't have the acting skills to back it up. They got better as the films went on, but looking back on The Philosopher's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets, some of acting from the three main kids was CBBC standard.
I too thought Ginny was a wasted opportunity in the films (they really should have replaced Bonnie Wright by the time of Order of the Phoenix, then they could have expanded the character) but, let's face it, she wasn't much better in the books!
I wish JKR had done a final spin on things where, nineteen years later, we see Harry is married to Luna, not Ginny, it would have been much better an ending, and gone against the boring idea that Harry was always meant to end up with Ginny, even though she was a bit crap!
The casting of Luna aside, I didn't much rate the films from Order onwards. David Yates has zero flair or ideas of his own as a director. Maybe that's why WB hired him, so they could tell him exactly what to do?
In years to come I want a big TV adaptation of the books. I also want JKR to write an adult book set in the Wizarding universe. I firmly believe she will return to that world.
I wish JKR had done a final spin on things where, nineteen years later, we see Harry is married to Luna, not Ginny, it would have been much better an ending, and gone against the boring idea that Harry was always meant to end up with Ginny, even though she was a bit crap!.
The problem was that Ginny was a far more interesting character in the books than in the movies, but even in the books her character wasn't fully developed. I think a lot of people ended up preferring Harry and Luna together because we got a lot more character development with Luna than we ever did with Ginny.
And the movies exacerbated that in two ways - by having extremely poor writing of Ginny's character the whole way through (and that's not a fault exclusive to that character) and by having a Luna who was better written and played by a much better and more suitable actress. They struck gold with Evanna Lynch, but certainly I think Ginny would have been a better character in the movies with better writing and more of a performance from Bonnie Wright.
As far as the leads go, I think Emma Watson absolutely is Hermione, it's insane how much she's like the Hermione I pictured when I first read the books! And I don't think she gives bad performances, I think a lot of the time none of them are helped by what was and wasn't cut from the book to the screenplay, and by how things were rearranged. In fact, my chief criticism of the Harry Potter movies is not the casting but the screenplays, none of which I think are that good!
I'm not a huge fan of Rupert Grint, but he had the best sense of timing of the three. Daniel Radcliffe looks the part, but I don't rate him as an actor, and he didn't often capture the Harry I'd pictured.
Michael Gambon needed better direction. He admitted he hadn't read the books and therefore the director(s) should have taken him aside and explained who Dumbledore was and how he behaved.
He's a fine actor but he just was not Dumbledore.
Evanna Lynch is Luna Lovegood.
Dan was great as Harry and I always found him convincing.
Rupert was fine but wasn't given much to do in the later films.
Emma was of course the perfect Hermione.
Bonnie Wright could have been great as Ginny with better direction. They seemed to want her character to be shy and quiet which goes wholly against the book, but there we go. I wasn't convinced by the Harry/Ginny romance in either the books or the films.
Gary Oldman
Richard Griffiths (RIP)
Fiona Shaw
Richard Harris (RIP)
Pam Ferris
Ralph Fiennes
Helena Bonham Carter
Maggie Smith
Brendan Gleeson
Alan Rickman
Emma Thompson
Jason Isaacs
Mark Williams
Julie Walters
= all perfect
All in all, phenomenal casting throughout.
The major dud was David Tennant in Goblet of Fire. Don't understand the fascination with this man. Awful, awful actor.
That's because she was a Potter nut before she got cast.
I too thought Ginny was a wasted opportunity in the films (they really should have replaced Bonnie Wright by the time of Order of the Phoenix, then they could have expanded the character) but, let's face it, she wasn't much better in the books!
I wish JKR had done a final spin on things where, nineteen years later, we see Harry is married to Luna, not Ginny, it would have been much better an ending, and gone against the boring idea that Harry was always meant to end up with Ginny, even though she was a bit crap!
The casting of Luna aside, I didn't much rate the films from Order onwards. David Yates has zero flair or ideas of his own as a director. Maybe that's why WB hired him, so they could tell him exactly what to do?
In years to come I want a big TV adaptation of the books. I also want JKR to write an adult book set in the Wizarding universe. I firmly believe she will return to that world.
Both in the books and especially in the film, I really wanted it to be Harry Potter and Luna who got together at the end.
This could be partly due to better character development with Luna rather than Ginny but I also think they seemed a better fit anyway. This is because I viewed both Harry and Luna as being slightly 'different' to the norm in the wizarding world.
And seeing both Harry and Luna together in the film, you could see that these two actors had the right chemistry too.
What do you mean? It's arguably the most famous line from the books, it was always going to be in the film and I thought Julie did a good job with it.
I mean I didn't like the way it was delivered. I had so much expectation for that line and it didn't match up to it. As I said it is possibly down to the director and not Julie.
does anyone know the full story on rik mayall's scenes that were all cut from philosophers stone? you dont even see them on the deleted scenes, and i heard he had upset someone high up. or maybe he was just terrible in the role. anyone know?
Comments
And I still haven't gotten over them cutting out McGonagall, Slughorn and Kingsley vs Voldemort on DH2.
I did prefer Harris' Dumbledore, just had a more subtle power and was friendlier like in the books than Gambon's one.
I thought Miriam Margoyles was the perfect Sprout as well. The only person in the cast I didn't like was Bonnie Wright - her Ginny is irritating - you shouldn't actively NOT WANT her and Harry to get together but alas, her acting makes you do!
The best pieces of casting:
- Evanna Lynch - Luna. Even JKR has said that Evanna just is Luna in every way, and was absolutely born to play her. Exactly how I imagined her, almost uncannily so.
- Helena Bonham Carter - Belllatrix. Quite high profile casting, but inspired. The role fits her like a glove.
- Brendan Gleeson - Mad-Eye Moody - takes what is a fairly tiresome character in the book into a fascinating, genuinely engaging character in the movie. In fact, I would say he's the standout of the movie.
- David Thewlis - Lupin - not at all what I was expecting at first, but he is without doubt one of my favourite performers of the series and now I can't picture Lupin as anyone else.
The worst choices:
- Jim Broadbent - Slughorn - the man did a good job and is without question a very fine actor indeed, but he just doesn't suit this role. Slughorn needs to have his wits about him a bit more.
- Michael Gambon - Dumbledore. It pains me to say this, because again, Michael Gambon is a great actor and Dumbledore is a wonderful character, but his performance pales in comparison to Richard Harris. The "trophy cabinet scene" is an unforgivable incident.
- Bill Nighy - Scrimgeour - one of my favourite actors, but he doesn't suit the role at all. He was nothing at all like the Scrimgeour I imagined. I think the only reason Bill got the part was due to his well-publicised comment that he was the only British actor left not to have made an appearance.
I would say the same for Roger Lloyd Pack as Barty Crouch Sr, Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter, and Chris Rankin as Percy Weasley - they were all well cast but gave poor performances.
Miss Spriggs did a fine job in the first movie I thought whereas Dawn French went way over the top.
The three child leads were another matter. Each of them looked the part - still amazes me how they fitted with my mental image of the kids the first time I read the books - but it's a shame they didn't have the acting skills to back it up. They got better as the films went on, but looking back on The Philosopher's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets, some of acting from the three main kids was CBBC standard.
I wish JKR had done a final spin on things where, nineteen years later, we see Harry is married to Luna, not Ginny, it would have been much better an ending, and gone against the boring idea that Harry was always meant to end up with Ginny, even though she was a bit crap!
The casting of Luna aside, I didn't much rate the films from Order onwards. David Yates has zero flair or ideas of his own as a director. Maybe that's why WB hired him, so they could tell him exactly what to do?
In years to come I want a big TV adaptation of the books. I also want JKR to write an adult book set in the Wizarding universe. I firmly believe she will return to that world.
The problem was that Ginny was a far more interesting character in the books than in the movies, but even in the books her character wasn't fully developed. I think a lot of people ended up preferring Harry and Luna together because we got a lot more character development with Luna than we ever did with Ginny.
And the movies exacerbated that in two ways - by having extremely poor writing of Ginny's character the whole way through (and that's not a fault exclusive to that character) and by having a Luna who was better written and played by a much better and more suitable actress. They struck gold with Evanna Lynch, but certainly I think Ginny would have been a better character in the movies with better writing and more of a performance from Bonnie Wright.
As far as the leads go, I think Emma Watson absolutely is Hermione, it's insane how much she's like the Hermione I pictured when I first read the books! And I don't think she gives bad performances, I think a lot of the time none of them are helped by what was and wasn't cut from the book to the screenplay, and by how things were rearranged. In fact, my chief criticism of the Harry Potter movies is not the casting but the screenplays, none of which I think are that good!
I'm not a huge fan of Rupert Grint, but he had the best sense of timing of the three. Daniel Radcliffe looks the part, but I don't rate him as an actor, and he didn't often capture the Harry I'd pictured.
That's because she was a Potter nut before she got cast.
Some of the adults, while brilliantly cast, were woefully underused.
Both in the books and especially in the film, I really wanted it to be Harry Potter and Luna who got together at the end.
This could be partly due to better character development with Luna rather than Ginny but I also think they seemed a better fit anyway. This is because I viewed both Harry and Luna as being slightly 'different' to the norm in the wizarding world.
And seeing both Harry and Luna together in the film, you could see that these two actors had the right chemistry too.
But hey ho.
I like Julie Walters apart from her 'not my daughter you bitch' line. That may have been the director though.
I don't rate Alan Rickman as an actor but he was great in this role.
Daniel Radcliffe was laughable at times. The worst is the scene in the snow. (Maybe film 3?)
Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane were FAB. Evanna Lynch too.
The Weasley twins were pretty bad actors but the banter made it work.
I wish someone else had played Madam Hooch as we may have got to see her in subsequent films.
I didn't expect to like Emma Thompson but she was terrific.
Dumbledore-wise; I'm in the Gambon camp although Richard Harris looked better!
Neville - dreadful.
David Tennant in anything is unwatchable.
Will post more soon once I think of them.
What do you mean? It's arguably the most famous line from the books, it was always going to be in the film and I thought Julie did a good job with it.
I mean I didn't like the way it was delivered. I had so much expectation for that line and it didn't match up to it. As I said it is possibly down to the director and not Julie.
I wish that they had included Peeves in the film.