Well, it’s a mixture. If you came down to the set you may not, it’s pretty funny. Whatever is in front of the camera is obviously decently lit, heated and looks amazing, the props etc, whilst anything behind the camera is basically err, up to our own devices, lots of cables running about and lots of building materials and the rest of it.

For example we’ve been shooting outdoors at the moment and they build, basically this decrepit castle that’s all been smashed up and it’s quite incredible… so a lot of credit goes to Stuart Tozer who’s the set designer, it’s never an easy task.

They go such lengths of detail too, one example from an earlier film is when the students get books to read in the class room, and to be honest, there was no need for that book to have anything written in it, but it’s actually 122 pages of withering text that some guy’s sat down and written just to help the other kids and stuff like that, so it’s incredible the amount of detail that they go to!

That’s brilliant, I want to see one.

Ahh bless you, you could have it now but…

Wow! Well I was going to come down and see you today but I’ve never been to London and I was on my own and I’m scared and I needed to get my car fixed… it’s just a nightmare Tom!

Ahh, we’d look after you here, don’t worry. [FF: But it’s so big and there’s underground trains] haha, if it’s any consolation, where we film in London’s not really London. It’s not London as you expect it, it’s very residential and spaced out.

Well if you ever want Female First to do a design the scenes piece…

Awesome, I’ll speak to the publicity team!

Do it, do it, definately. So what do you think as a person you bring to your character? I mean in the book it could be anyone, but you really bring Draco to life!

Thank you! Well it’s hard to say really… I supposed I’ve done it [acting] from such a young age, and obviously we read the books about a year and a half before we actually read the script.

To be honest though, we don’t really reference from the books when we do the films because, obviously, we have a script and if you start referencing back to the books it starts getting very up-and-down and messy whereas if we stick to the script that we’ve got in out hands, it puts the direction down for us.

I just do what feels natural to me, but it’s been a massive learning curve for me over the last ten years, especially working with a lot of big actors is always, well helpful really, you’re learning a lot from them all the time.

Aww, that’s so sweet… but are there any similarities between you and your character that we should know about?

You could not be any further from the truth! Certainly not, which is kind of cool actually because I feel there is no better definition of acting than playing someone who literally couldn’t be any more different. I mean, he’s vile. To be fair, I’ve always felt sorry for the lad, being bullied by your old man and the rest of it…

He’s definitely the type of character that I’d like to play if I was an actor…

Yeah, I thought about it the other day, like whether I’m a nicer person off the set, because I get to be nasty little git while on set…. There could some truth to that! Maybe it’s like a sort of therapy where I get to vent my anger. I always appreciated it when they’ve got to do re-takes and the other kids have to be smiling and laughing and after a while when it gets a bit repetitive all I’ve got to do is sit there with a glum face.

You need to get an evil assistant, I think I need to do that to them at the mechanics.

Oooh, an accomplice, I’ll look into that one and fight with JK to put it in.

Cheers, we’ll be like the evil Ant and Dec!! But are you ever worried that when the franchise is over you’ll be type cast as kind of baddie?

People ask that quite a lot actually, but I don’t, I feel quite lucky on a few occasions. One that I’m only 22 so I thought to be typecast at that sort of an age is a little bit strong - unless you’re playing the main - so I can understand why people would always link Daniel to Harry.

But the only good thing I can think of is that A, like we just discussed, I’m playing someone completely different to my self and I feel like he’s quite iconic looking considering that his hair is white as it is now! I’ve obviously been kept out of the sun for the last few months, but it’s one of those looks that when I have got the hair like this I’m very easily recognisable, but when I don’t people don’t usually bat an eyelid.

Brilliant! Because on Google images, you’ve got quite dark hair and with little bits of blonde in on some of them…

I think that was one of the ones when I was trying to grow it out and get rid of it. Funnily enough we did dye it to try and dye it back to its original colour but the blonde, it keeps coming through… it’s such a drag. It’s an ongoing battle this one!!

You poor thing! So what is like growing up, because obviously you were young when you started it and now you’re 22 - you’ve grow up being involved in something like this. What types of pressure have you had?

I don’t really know what to say to that.

Well I’m 22 as well and the only pressure I’ve ever had was deciding what club to go out to at uni.

I suppose that in a way, all my friends have obviously gone of to uni and done all that and I never really felt like that was, well, that was an option obviously but never really felt like it was an option for me because I did my GCSEs but I chose not to do my A-Levels when everyone else was doing them because they made me feel like I wasn’t part of the school anymore and didn’t really want to hang around any longer.

I felt slightly left out that I didn’t get to do those things but saying that, I’ve visited my friends at uni and thought, you know what? I don’t feel left out. But there’s certainly experiences that have been compromised and actually, saying that, it mostly bothered me when I was a kid.

Now I obviously understand you gotta work, but when I was 14-15 and couldn’t go on the school trip to Spain or something… because you don’t want to go to work, you don’t care about work.

I’m like that now…

(laughs) Brilliant. But it’s only the last couple of years I’ve realised ‘you know what, lets dig deep and get something done because this is a unbelievable position’ but yeah, I understand where you’re coming from.

Ahh, bless you. Now, on your Wikipedia page it says you’re an actor/musician. So I’ve got to ask, what exactly do you do that’s musical because I couldn’t see a lot on there?

Well, it’s basically a YouTube thing that got out of hand… I’ve got a guitar and I kind of sing - if you want to call it that - and I put a couple of videos on YouTube a few of years ago and they’ve done pretty well. There’s a small, cult sort of following that are always after new music. I’ve always been a bit of a musician and I like to record it and I’m happy to share with the people that want to hear it.

That’s amazing. So, will you doing any stuff when you’ve finished filming and can people come and see you, because I want to see you on stage.

Brilliant! But no, not at the moment. It’s probably not ideal as obviously the days are pretty long… and I’m not really up for becoming a pop star just yet.

So you’ll not be auditioning for X Factor next year then?

(laughs) Not at the moment, not at the moment.

So, finally, to all the people who’ve watched the films and have your face on their pencil cases, on their bags, bedroom walls, everything, what would like to say to them all?

Well, if you give an open palette, then the first thing’s appreciation really. Because we’ve been making these films for nearly ten years and I’m so, so grateful to anyone who’s supported it, that’s why it’s always great when we get to go and see the premieres around the world.

It’s always nice to be able to say thank you to the people who have kept us going and every year we say to ourselves ‘this’ll be the year, this is the year it gets slated and nobody goes to see it.’ Especially with the release of Twilight coming out here we though that this is the next thing and people have moved on, but Half Blood Prince took the most of the lot. That really boosts us to carry on with determination for the last two and just thanks really.

Ahh, so sweet. Well, it’s been brilliant speaking to you Tom…

It’s been a pleasure, I hope I’ve been all right I hope I haven’t been too scary.

No, you haven’t, I’m loving it now. Now when I see you on TV, I’m gonna be like ‘he so nice’.   You’ll probably see me ‘round London one day, lost and screaming my head off.

Well, I won’t get you down the tube!!

FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison

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