Warwick Davis Recalls Emotional Final Day On Potter Set
“I shot my last day on ‘Harry Potter’ last Saturday. It was a very sad, very emotional day,” actor Warwick Davis told MTV News recently at the grand opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park. “I never really get upset finishing a film. I’m normally glad that it’s over, that I won’t have to wear the makeup anymore — but I was actually really quite choked up about it. Ten years’ worth of work finished, and on Sunday, it was worse. I woke up Sunday morning thinking, ‘No more Harry Potter. That’s it.’ ”
Read more of Warwick’s thoughts after the jump. Or, first, enjoy Warwick Davis in a hottub.
Davis, who plays Hogwarts’ residential Charms expert Professor Flitwick, recalled the emotional final day of shooting. “I was filming with the second unit, and then I went over to the first unit where they were doing the last shot with Dan [Radcliffe], Rupert [Grint] and Emma [Watson]. The first assistant director didn’t shout, ‘It’s a wrap.’ He didn’t say that. He said, ‘Come over to the screens over here. I have a lot of video to show you.’ He set up the video: a piece of film that they’d shot every day with what’s called the golden boards. It would be a special guest that day or an actor who was finishing up the film, or whatever. If something unusual was happening, they’d be the person holding the golden board. Twenty minutes’ worth to summarize the last year and a half that we’d been working on the movie. It was really very sad.”
Although Davis couldn’t divulge the final scene that was shot for “Deathly Hallows,” he confirmed that the last shot involved Radcliffe, Grint and Watson. “It was them, as it should be,” he said. “The three of them. I was lucky to be there for the last day. I think I was the only other castmember in on it.”
Even though his work filming “Harry Potter” is complete, Davis’ journey through Hogwarts continues on. “It’s lovely, because we’re all here,” he said, referring to the newly opened Wizarding World of Harry Potter. “It’s like a big school trip. We’re all on holiday, so this is like a new beginning. And we still have the films to see as well.”