‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One’ hits Irish cinemas on Friday, November 19th. The third Harry Potter film to be directed by David Yates, JK Rowling's tale of Harry Potter and his wizarding world is coming to a close in two parts. In the lead up to the long goodbye IFTN caught up with Irish actress, Evanna Lynch who plays Luna Lovegood in the films.
Termonfeckin-born Evanna Lynch was chosen out of 15,000 hopefuls at an open audition in London to play Luna Lovegood - a strange girl who is described as having a permanently surprised look on her face and who doesn’t seem to care about what people think of her.
The first part of the film series’ final chapter, sees Voldemort's power growing stronger. He now has control over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts so Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide to finish Dumbledore's work and find the rest of the Horcruxes to defeat the Dark Lord. But little hope remains for the Trio, and the rest of the Wizarding World, so everything they do must go as planned. After ten years of the Harry Potter films the end is most definitely coming with a bang.
Of course Luna et al have already said their goodbyes to the franchise – the shooting of both films wrapped in June and, with the exception of premieres and press events, the students of Hogwarts have now gone their separate ways. Evanna Lynch has definitely de-Luna’d when we meet her; a newly bruntte look paired with enthusiastic but detached responses belie a comfortable disconnection from the Harry Potter world. We spoke with her to see how the filming of the last two instalments went and what now lies in store for her, post-Potter.
IFTN: Evanna, had you seen the new film yet?
Evanna Lynch: “Yes, twice. And I loved it, because it was so different to all the other Harry Potters. I mean, I really enjoy them but sometimes you just get used to them - but this one was a shock, everything was very unexpected. I find that you see the magic more in this film.
IFTN: When we spoke last year Rhys Ifans was carefully studying your accent to play your father, Xenophilius Lovegood in the film. Do you think he cracked the Louth brogue?
Evanna Lynch:Yeah he nailed it...I didn’t fully know that he was going to do an accent, because he’s Welsh obviously and the Welsh accent is not that different to the Irish one. But he did it brilliantly and I had a really great time with him. I heard he had a disk of some of my scenes, so he must have studied them!
IFTN: The only scene in the film with you and Rhys together features some interesting dance moves, who choreographed those?
Evanna Lynch:I did. I was reading the book the night before we shot the scene and it says that Luna was by herself and Harry thinks she looks like she is doing a dance that looks like she is batting away Wrackspurts. We wanted it to look like that but a bit more graceful, so we added a spin. And Rhys then said ‘What about if we go up and down?’...it is very cut down in the film, but there was a whole half hour section in our dance originally.
IFTN: When they wrapped on your last day of filming was it sad or a bit of a relief?
Evanna Lynch:I wrapped on the 1st of June and I was quite sad for a while. I do really miss it - the other day we had the premiere, and we would normally say ‘Ok, see you for filming in a few months’ to each other, but there’s none of that anymore. Just the next premiere, it is quite sad really.
IFTN: Was there a strange feeling on set when you were shooting the last two films – a sense of finality for instance?
Evanna Lynch:Yes, it was like the last Harry Potter book where people kept dying! I remember a few weeks before our last day a lot of the adults finished, like Alan Rickman and Warwick Davis, we were all like “Thank god it’s not me”. But most of the people finished on the day that I finished, it was one of the last scenes which was the Neville and Voldemort faceoff, There was a big clap at the end and they did a big cast picture where the photographer got up on a ladder and took a photo. Rupert (who plays Ron) had been sick that day, so we got a cardboard cut out of Rupert and took a big huge picture of everyone.
IFTN: Can you tell me what we can expect from the second part of the Deathly Hallows?
Evanna Lynch:There’s way a lot more action in that Harry and the others find the next Horcruxes really quickly. And a lot of the second film is taken up with the battle where other characters, like Neville are really important.
IFTN: Was there a lot of training for the battle scene?
Evanna Lynch:I’m sure there was, but not for me. Luna never gets in on the action! Everyone else has blood...Neville has blood everywhere for instance, and I think she just gets a bit of grit in her hair. But she doesn’t fight much either because in the second film she is running around chasing Harry about the Raven Claw dining room for a lot of the time! At first I was disappointed because it is exciting to get the blood done...but they all had to come in an hour earlier for make-up and I would still be in bed!
IFTN: Will we get to see grown up Luna at the end of the story?
Evanna Lynch:No, we don’t get to see her. I would have liked that, but I think in the book you don’t really get to know too much about her either. It’s just Harry and Hermione and Ron and Ginny. I think the last shot is...no I won’t say it!
IFTN: So what are your plans for the future now?
Evanna Lynch:I’m back at school, I’m repeating the Leaving Cert. I get a bit distracted when I’m doing these tours but it is only a month so hopefully I will knuckle down after this! And then next year I really want to do more acting. I’m going to leave off University for a few years because I’m just tired of all this schoolwork and working, I’d just like to do something a bit more...fun!
- ‘ ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One’ opens in cinemas nationwide on Friday, November 19th.
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