Hogwarts’ Bad Boy Tom Felton Talks Harry Potter

Tom Felton has been playing Draco Malfoy for ten years.

That’s as long as Friends was on the air – and it’s about half of his life (he’ll turn 22 in September).

Still, the nastiest kid at Hogwarts still manages to surprise the young actor.

“I think certainly Jo has sort of been establishing Draco as this two-dimensional bully character,” he says during an interview at the Royal York Hotel.

By Jo, he means series author JK Rowling – who has serious changes in store for the bleached blonde malcontent in the latest film, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.

 “When I first obviously read the story, it was pretty amazing but to get the script was even more exciting and slightly scary to be honest with you. I wasn’t quite sure – because it was so different to where we’d been going previous years.”

This time, Felton hints, there’s lots of romance at Hogwarts, and a lot of the trials and tribulations that come with growing older.

“Although it’s set in this magical kingdom, all of the things that happen are actually all human traits and I think that’s why it’s such a relatable story really.

“It’s a huge honour, obviously, to be a part of the franchise, and a huge privilege. The people that we’ve met over the years, that’s certainly going to be the biggest loss when it’s all over.”

Having talented actors around certainly helped – most of the time.

“I was sort of nervous about doing one-on-one scenes with Michael Gambon and Alan Rickman of course,” Felton admits.

“But David Yates pulled me aside before we started shooting and was very clear with where he wanted to go with it, which made me feel a bit more confident and slowly but surely we got somewhere that I was happy with.

“There was actually a bit in there when I messed up a line of some nature and I was so nervous and embarrassed to do it in front of Michael and I was so apologetic for like 20 minutes afterwards and he was like, ‘do you know how much I’m on a week? We can do this all day.’ He was like, ‘keep messing them up if you can!’

“We had a lot of fun and they’re very good at making you feel extremely comfortable very quickly so I’m very grateful for that.”

Rickman had some fun at the young star’s expense:

“At the very end of a scene, after Snape has done his bit, we’re sort of walking out of the Great Hall in this goose, v-wing formation in which he’s at the front; he’s the sort of leading goose if you will.

“And he’s got this almost wedding dress cape on that seems to go three metres on the ground and the director was very keen for us to stay close behind to him, and of course, ‘don’t look at where your feet are going.’

“Naturally, before we started filming, Alan turned around in his very sinister way and said, ‘don’t step on my cloak.’ And we all sort of didn’t know whether he was joking or not.

“On the second take I dug my heel well and truly on it, which ripped his neck back in a hilarious fashion in my eyes but at the time it didn’t go down well. There was a rather awkward silence afterwards.

“Saying that, Alan is an incredibly nice guy and one of the funniest people on the set. There’s a lot of confusion there, people think that he’s a very sinister guy, but he’s hilarious really.”

Other misconceptions Felton is quick to correct?

He doesn’t fish anymore: “I won’t lie – that’s one of those quotes that I said when I was twelve that has just plagued me ever since. The fishing rod has been put down for a few years.”

He loves music and released some of it online – but he has no plans to pursue it professionally:

“It scares me you mention my music as a career – it’s certainly not where I was angling! It’s always been a passion of mine and I learned to play on the Harry Potter set, lots of hours to yourself so it’s a great way of killing the time.

That’s really him on Twitter, and while he was in Toronto, he posted a special picture for his fans.

“There’s a car that’s taking us ’round which has actually got all the Harry Potter logos and stuff on it so I took some pictures of that and put it on Twitter.
Straight away, as soon as I saw it, I thought oh this is hilarious, they’ll love this.

As for the iconic haircut, watch the video to find out what Felton thinks about his signature locks.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens in theatres on July 15.