10 Untold Facts About Harry Potter
6 J.K. Rowling is wealthier than the Queen of England.
After writing writing the overly successful Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling became wealthier than the Queen of England and is the only person to have become a billionaire solely through writing. She’s also the fastest person to lose billionaire status having given away a large portion of her money to charity.(source)
7 Warner Bros. wanted to make the Harry Potter films animated over concern of the rapid aging of child actors.
Warner Bros. considered making the entire series as a set of CGI animated films or attempting to combine several novels into a single movie to avoid dealing with the possibility of the child actors aging too much if production times ran too long or was delayed between sequels. J.K. Rowling vetoed the ideas resulting in the studio producing all of the films back to back so the same actors could play their roles in each film. (source)
8 The actors in Harry Potter would do their actually schoolwork during the schools scenes in order to make the setting looking more real.
One would think that being a part of one of the most successful film franchises in the world would exempt you from doing homework but that wasn’t the case for the stars of the Harry Potter. Oliver Phelps the actor that plays Weasley said that the actors were instructed to do their homework while filming to add realism to the scenes:
“In the exercise books in the Great Hall set, we’d actually do our own school work, just to make it look as authentic as possible”.
Director Alfonso Cuaron had the three main stars write essays in order to become more acquainted with them. Interestingly enough each actors response to the request mimicked their film character’s personalities perfectly: Emma Watson wrote a 16-page essay, Daniel Radcliffe wrote a simple, one-page paper, and Rupert Grint never handed his in. (1,2)
9 Filming Harry Potter in the Gloucester Cathedral Church caused a stir of controversy due to the films ‘pagan imagery’.
Originally the filmmakers originally wanted to use the Canterbury Cathedral as a filming location for some of the Hogwarts scenes, but the Dean of Canterbury denied them the location saying that the production was “unfitting for a Christian church to be used to promote pagan imagery.”
Gloucester Cathedral agreed to take the role of Hogwarts after the Dean the Very Reverend Nicholas Bury, admitted to being a fan of the books. This resulted in a huge media outcry in Gloucester. Protestors wrote hundreds of letters to newspapers flaming it was blasphemous.(source)
10 Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry Potter stunt double David Holmes is paralyzed from the neck down from an accident on set during the filming of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
David Holmes was the stunt double for Daniel Radcliffe for the first 6 Harry Potter films. He has also been credited for the role of Adrian Pucey in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
While test filming in 2009 he injured his spine resulting in him being confined to a wheelchair even though he initially wished to return to work. He was still credited as ‘stuntman’ for his work in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
He has since started a production company with two of his friends who are also tetraplegic and despite being wheelchair bound he has taken up race car driving.(source)
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