A London visit to ‘Harry Potter 5’ set

Via INQ7

We wished we had a camera on our recent visit to the set of “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix.”

Huddled together in a huge open space of the 200-plus acre Leavesden Studios, about an hour’s ride by bus from London, were figures that at first glance looked like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and their “Order of Phoenix” cast mates: Matthew Lewis, Bonnie Wright and Evana Lynch. But they were not. They were the stand-ins of the young actors and actresses but it was quite a sight. These substitutes, who stand in for the actors before filming for technical purposes (like during the lighting set-up), were of course chosen for having the same skin tone, hair color, height and build as the actual cast. So it was like seeing a set of clones while the real Daniel and company were filming a scene inside a set structure. As usual, taking pictures on the set was strictly forbidden so it was too bad that we couldn’t capture for posterity this set of stand-ins who were dressed exactly the way the real actors were. Rupert’s substitute had the flaming red hair, too. Incidentally, director David Yates is such a perfectionist that he did so many takes of one scene involving Harry and his “Dumbledore’s Army.” By the day’s end, we could recite all the lines in this scene -- and in the voices of the cast.

We saw the Great Hall again but this time it was set for a breakfast scene to be filmed the following day. So the seemingly endless rows of tables were set with plates and real cutlery -- not ordinary ones, mind you but gold-plated spoons, forks and knives. We imagined how much a spoon from one of the tables could fetch on eBay. Speaking of cutlery, we had lunch with the cast and crew at the commissary so on our way in, we saw Rupert and said hi to him as he ate just like one of the guys.

What was different on our second “Harry Potter” set visit was that we finally got to talk to Katie Leung, whose Cho Chang role was coveted by many girls from around the world, including Chinese-Filipinas who sent letters, photos and audition tapes to the producers. “I feel that I’m very lucky to be chosen out of so many girls,” the Scottish-Chinese Katie told us. She gets to kiss Daniel in this fifth film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s phenomenally successful series of books. “Yes, Daniel is a very good kisser,” Katie confirmed when asked. “Yeah, I really enjoyed it (the kiss).” We’ll write more in the future about our interviews with Katie, Daniel (who confirmed that he will do a nude scene in “Equus” when he makes his West End debut next year), Rupert, Evana (as Luna Lovegood, she is the new girl in this movie; like Katie, she won the role over thousands of girls) and others. Other cast newcomers include Imelda Staunton (her Dolores Umbridge’s fondness for pink inspired the motif of our set visit tent), Helena Bonham Carter and George Harris.