Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 marks David Yates' fourth entry in the Potter franchise, and a cap not only to the series, but his own mini-franchise. Yes, the films fit together in their eight-part structure, but honing in on Yates’ micro series reveals an evolution, all leading to one triumphant, operatic conclusion.
On set, our group sat down with Yates to better understand his approach to knocking Deathly Hallows – Part 2 out of the park.
How will you start Part 2 off with a bang?
Yates: I think what’s really potentially fun about Part 2 is I always feel these movies carry a lot of freight where you need to remind the audience where you’ve been and where you’re going. I always think the first acts they tend to be slightly tricky because you’re always setting things up. I love the notion of parachuting straight in. I love the notion that the audience has experience six or seven of these movies and they don’t need an intro. They don’t need a big bang so the notion where you parachute in from the first minute I think is really fun. Steve [Kloves] wrote a first draft of the second part with that spirit. When I first read it I said, “Steve this is great. It doesn’t have a beginning. It just goes.” You’re in it and you’re just off. I really like that. So that’s kind of the spirit of how we’re approaching Part II.
Do you lose that vérité style in Part 2?
Yates: Yeah, we do. It’s a different dynamic actually. The style of Part 1 suits Part 1 because we always say these films are slightly coming of age, but when you take these iconic characters out of that framework of Hogwarts and you put them in a dangerous world. They have to bury their first body for example. There’s a moment in the film where Hermione and Harry dance for the first time. It’s full of proper sexual tension because they’re both teenagers and they’re both at that stage where Ron has left and there’s this sort of intimacy between them. There are all sorts of corners that you turn because they’re young adults. Turning those corners in the real world is actually quite fun and interesting. The vérité style seemed to suit that.
Are there things you’re still discovering that are exciting and new about the Harry Potter world? What also made you decide to keep going after the first one you worked on?
Yates: It’s too much fun to stop to be honest. It’s a great world to be working with. It’s so rich and playful. At the beginning of Part 1 we’ve got this car chase. It’s a wizard car chase. Jo gives us the opportunities in what she’s put together in Hallows that I didn’t get to do in Half- Blood and Order of the Phoenix because she’s so imaginative. I never feel like I’m making the same movie. Six for me felt very different than five because there was more comedy and it was more playful, it had a slightly different tone, it wasn’t as intense, it wasn’t as tight. In Hallows Part I is these kids are on the road. They feel very small in a very big world. They are away from Hogwarts—this big familiar comfortable blanket that they’ve grown up with. They feel quite surprisingly vulnerable and fragile in this big Muggle world. With the second film, I just want it to be a big opera. I want it to be big and loud and exciting. I want it to be a big action spectacle.
How are you working with the actors to get these very emotional scenes out of them?
Yates: Well they’ve gotten older and that means in their life they have experienced more. Any actor draws on that so you encourage them to bring a bit of what they’ve learned from the real world and their real lives into their performances. They become a little bit more sophisticated in what they do. Also I’m a big believer in giving them a bit more freedom to try things so we might do a take and instead of going cut, we’ll just do the take again. We never stop so you give them the opportunity to tune in into the moment.
One thing I often say to Daniel is that you have to tune into this experience. It’s a bit like a dial on a radio. Here’s a bit static. Here the sounds not quite right and here you’re actually here—you’re in it. You’re always saying let’s try to be in that experience. When you’re in that experience you don’t have to show it. It just has to happen to you. There was a torturing [scene] with Emma and Bellatrix. Emma was really keen to do this torturing scene. I said we had to be really careful about how we do it and she completely gave herself to the process. What we did was set up a couple of cameras and Helena [Bonham Carter] got on top of Emma basically and she was writing mud blood on her arm. We just let the whole thing role for about three or four minutes. In that three or four minutes there was some good bits and not so good bits. There were one or two moments that were really powerful where Emma was just able to let go and forget for a moment she was acting. She still was acting—you’re still performing but she lost herself in this process. The screams were quite horrible to listen to. You could feel it on stage. Everyone felt uncomfortable. Everyone sort of stepped back a bit. It was a very off energy in the room because she was exploring exercising demons really and serving the scene in doing that. It was really interesting.
Are you shooting for an audience at this point or for the general field?
Yates: It’s an odd thing Potter because it seems to attract six-year-old kids and 60-year-old men and women. Years ago I saw people reading the book on the tube and it wasn’t kids who were reading the book, it was adults reading the book. Jo Rowlings just created this world that has this universal appeal and it’s not ageist in any sense. We have pretty scary things and I worry about younger kids seeing some of the stuff because it’s quite scary but at the same time they seem to like scary stuff. So I never think about the demographic. I just think how can we make this as fun and interesting as possible.
WATCH THE TRAILER FOR HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2.
