Free The Making of the Potterverse by Edward Gross Page B

has taken off the way that it has?
    HARRIS: I’m afraid that I don’t know. All I know is that my granddaughter — and this is a legendary story now, and so I’m only repeating what’s been in the press before — but when they wanted me to do it, originally, I didn’t want to do it. And the reason that I didn’t was not because of the quality of it or the content of it, it’s because you had to commit your life. I mean, if they’re going to make seven movies, I’ve got to do them, that was it. There was no way out of it, and I hate commitment. I loath it, I loath having dates and I hate having to be someplace. Like, I hate having to be here, which really doesn’t matter. So, the point really is that the idea that my life has now been controlled, if they make seven, and they’re certainly going to make three, maybe even four, and the idea that your life is controlled by that doesn’t suit me at all. I hate that.
    QUESTION: So why did you do it?
    HARRIS: Because my granddaughter called me up and said, “Poppa, if you don’t play Dumbledore, I will never speak to you again.” So I hung up, called my agent and said, “Okay, I’ll do it. I can’t afford to lose that gig.” But having said that, I’m glad that I did it because when you get to seventy years of age, parts don’t come in all that easy. I mean, all the right parts for seventy-year-olds, enough of them, and it’s a wonderful project and it’s a wonderful part. I just have to condition myself to the fact that I’ve got to do more.

December 2001
    Bridget Jones’s Diary
costar Shirley Henderson was cast as the ghost Moaning Myrtle in
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
.

    J.K. Rowling with her husband, Neil Murray. (John D McHugh/AP Photo)
    In an interview with the BBC, J.K. Rowling revealed that she had written the last chapter of the seventh and final Harry Potter novel. “This really wraps everything,” she said. “It’s the epilogue and I basically say what happens to everyone after they leave school, those who survive — because there are deaths, more deaths coming.”
    There was an intention to turn the train used as the Hogwarts Express into a tourist attraction, but those plans were . . . derailed . . . by Warner Brothers’ lawyers.
    J.K. Rowling celebrated Christmas day by marrying Dr. Neil Murray. This was her second marriage.
    Casting rumors for the third Harry film,
Prisoner of Azkaban:
Ewan McGregor as Remus Lupin and Robson Green as Sirius Black. As it turns out, the rumors were false.
    The success of
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
had a positive effect on sales of the novel it was based on (not that they needed the boost): the first novel sold 1.1 million copies in England, which was over 200,000 more than
Goblet of Fire
.
    Maggie Smith was enthusiastic to a
USA Today
reporter in pointing out that Kenneth Branagh would be appearing in
Chamber of Secrets
. “Ken Branagh plays this rather glamorous teacher who comes in. I love the idea that the detention [the children] have to do after school if they’ve misbehaved is to answer all his fan mail.”

January 2002
    When the Producers Guild of America announced their nominations,
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
was nominated in the category of the Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award, going up against
A Beautiful Mind, Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge
and
Shrek
(
Moulin Rouge
took the prize).
    In an interview with A&E’s
Biography
, J.K. Rowling discussed the fact that at least one major character would die in upcoming novels. “Death is an extremely important theme throughout all seven books,” she said. “Possibly the most important theme. If you are writing about evil — which I am, I’m writing about someone who is essentially a psychopath — you have a duty to show the real evil of taking a human life. More people are going to die.”

February 2002
    Warner Brothers announced that
Sorcerer’s Stone
would be making its DVD debut on