Harry Potter (film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


List only trivia items that reflect the entire series, or which span multiple films here. Trivia specific to a single film should go on that film's page.

General Trivia

  • Harry Melling, the actor who played Dudley in the films, is the grandson of Patrick Troughton.
  • If you were to watch the theatrical cuts of all eight Harry Potter films back-to-back, it would take nineteen hours and thirty-eight minutes. The extended cuts would add twenty minutes to that, which is with released extended cuts existing for only the first two movies.
  • Fun facts about the four Harry Potter directors, Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron, Mike Newell, and David Yates:
    • One is American (Columbus), one is Mexican (Cuarón), and two are British (Newell and Yates).
    • The order they directed the films in is the same order their names would be listed in if organized in alphabetical order by last name.
    • Newell (born 1942) is the oldest person to direct a Harry Potter movie, being sixty-three when he directed Goblet in 2005. Although Yates has the most recent birthdate of all the directors (1963), the record for directing a Potter film at the youngest age is a tie between Columbus (born 1958 and directed Stone in 2001, making him forty-three) and Cuarón (born 1961 and directed Azkaban in 2004, also making him forty-three), whereas Yates was forty-four when he directed Phoenix in 2007. J. K. Rowling is younger than all the directors, being born in 1965.
    • Columbus and Yates are the only people to direct more than one Potter film, with Columbus directing two of them and Yates directing four of them. As such, Yates has directed the entire second half of the series.
  • Azkaban is the only movie in which the title doesn't appear over a cloud background (the title did appear over the customary cloud background in the trailers, but not in the actual movie). Out of the ones with cloud backgrounds, Chamber is the only one in which it's not a stormy cloud backgrounds. Stone and Prince are the only ones which include lightning in the cloud background. Chamber and Phoenix are the only films in which no scene takes place between the appearance of the Warner Bros. logo and the title.
  • The Deathly Hallows films don't really divide the book in half. More accurately, Part 1 covers about two thirds of the book and Part 2 about one third.
  • After Deathly Hallows came out, it was revealed that Alan Rickman (who plays Professor Snape) had had a conversation with J. K. Rowling about his character while filming Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone, and was the only other person besides Rowling who knew that Snape had been in love with Harry's mother. He based his entire performance off this conversation. (He was also JKR's personal favorite to play Snape.)
  • Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the most financially successful Potter film, being the only one to pass the billion dollar mark. The least financially successful was Prisoner of Azkaban, which is "only" the thirty-second highest grossing film of all time. Hallows: Part 2 is also the most critically successful entry in the series (96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) while Order of the Phoenix was the least critically successful (78% rating).
  • The two halves of Deathly Hallows were written and filmed as one giant four-hour film. It was worked out in editing where to put the break between Part 1 and Part 2. Originally, the break was tentatively planned to occur after the Trio is captured by the Snatchers, but it got moved to after Voldemort recovers the Elder Wand. This means the battle at Malfoy Manor was originally intended as the beginning of Part 2, but instead became the end of Part 1.
  • Warwick Davis has played two characters within one film twice in the series—in the very first movie and in the very last movie. In both cases, he played Flitwick and a Gringotts goblin.
  • The Closing Credits throughout the series:
    • First two films: The credits are plain white words on a black background. The starting music is "Harry's Wondrous World", which is not heard in subsequent films, either in the credits or elsewhere. The second film is the only movie in the series to have a scene after the credits.
    • Third film: First film in the series to use Creative Closing Credits, which in this case is an animation of the Marauder's Map. The music is a Credits Medley, titled "Mischief Managed!" on the movie soundtrack.
    • Fourth film: The credits appear on pieces of paper, resembling the scraps of paper thrown into the Goblet of Fire. Another Credits Medley, which opens with a Rearrange the Song version of "Hedwig's Theme". The credits track is not on the official soundtrack, which remains the case for the rest of the series.
    • Fifth film: The words appear on a parchment-like background in the same typeface as Umbridge's proclamations. The music is another Credits Medley, opening with part of "Dumbledore's Army".
    • Sixth film: The words form out of ink-like clouds the way images in the Pensieve do. The music opens with "Fireworks", which was composed for the previous film. Last film to use Creative Closing Credits.
    • Seventh film: A plain black background is used for the first time since the second film, but with the words being golden and metallic-looking. The music is "Obliviate".
    • Eighth film: Same as the seventh film. The opening music is an unaltered version of "Hedwig's Theme".
  • Voldemort's headquarters during the Battle of Hogwarts got changed from the Shrieking Shack to the boat house because Stuart Craig wanted to get to show the interior of the boat house at least once in the series.
  • The first line of the first movie and the last line of the last movie were both spoken by someone named "Albus":

Albus Dumbledore: I should have known that you would be here... Professor McGonagall.
Albus Potter: [after Harry asks "Ready?"] Ready.


Specific Tropes

  • Ability Over Appearance: The actors were frequently cast this way. Horace Slughorn, Dolores Umbridge and Gilderoy Lockhart were all played by actors who didn't quite match the physical description of their book counterparts (for instance, Slughorn is meant to be short and stout, but Jim Broadbent is over six feet tall), but who had the attitude down perfectly.
  • Acting for Two:
    • Warwick Davis plays Flitwick throughout the series (with a different look in the earlier films), the goblin bank teller in Stone, and is also Griphook in Deathly Hallows. Additionally, Flitwick's new look was originally meant to be a separate character. Basically, they cast Warwick Davis whenever they need someone very short.
  • Actor Allusion:
    • Dudley Dursley is played by Harry Melling. There is a brief moment in the first film, which was not in the book, in which Hagrid mistakes Dudley for Harry, to which Dudley responds that he's "not Harry."
    • Ralph Fiennes is playing a bigoted, sociopathic, totalitarian psychopath with zero compassion or humanity and who commands/leads an influential racist cult in a war-torn, politically unstable world... now, are we talking about Lord Voldemort or Amon Goeth? Notable given that the latter was Fiennes' big break in the film-making business.
    • Look at Dumbledore's death in The Half Blood Prince (3:00) and Hans Gruber's death in Die Hard(2:45). Nicely inverted, as the killed in one is the killer in the other.
    • It almost certainly was a coincidence rather than a deliberate allusion, but Michael Gambon, who took over as Dumbledore for the movie in which werewolf Remus Lupin first appears, himself played a werewolf in The Beast Must Die (1974).
  • All-Star Cast:
  • Author Existence Failure: Or rather, Actor Existence Failure -- Richard Harris, between movies two and three.
  • Contractual Purity:
    • Daniel Radcliffe invoked a wave of moral outrage when he appeared on London's West End as Alan Strang in a production of Equus. It's an incredible (albeit disturbing) role that any actor would be insane to turn down the chance to play. The Moral Guardians, however, only saw Naked!Harry Potter - which is probably what the production company was banking on, anyway.
    • There was some uproar about Clémence Poésy (Fleur Delacour) appearing topless in a French movie, even though it was before she was even cast in the film.
    • Emma Watson has let it be known that she's willing to do nudity in other films, which means it's just a matter of time before the Moral Guardians scream about Hermione Granger showing her dirty pillows in some movie or another. Watson has also berated by Moral Guardians for the shocking crimes of… going to a nightclub and drinking. There's also a Paris Hiltonesque crotch shot, which those guardians must been specifically looking for in order to find.
    • Jamie Waylett (Vincent Crabbe) got this in 2009 after being arrested for possession of marijuana, even though Crabbe isn't a particularly "wholesome" character to start with. Worse still, Crabbe was written out of the last two films because of this. Insanity, especially because Crabbe dies in the book. In the films, Goyle dies instead of Crabbe.
    • On the other side, it seems pretty much no one cares that Rupert Grint acted in Cherrybomb, playing a character who does drugs and steals cars. Then again, he's a bad guy who's supposed to do bad things.
    • Harry Melling, who plays Dudley, has lost a huge amount of weight over the years (to the point of having to wear a fat suit for the final movie) and is barely recognizable from his younger self. He's publicly stated he is happy about this so he can avoid this issue in his adult career as an actor.
  • Dawson Casting: For the most part, an Averted Trope with the central Power Trio, and some of the other younger actors, especially in the early films. However, as the films were staggered further and further apart, the age differences between the cast and their characters grew. Emma Watson managed to avoid this completely, since she was actually younger than Hermione in the first book when she was cast. An Averted Trope again with Evanna Lynch as Luna in Order of the Phoenix.
    • Subverted with Tom Riddle, whose actor was 25 in Chamber of Secrets but was recast as a teenager of equal age in Half-Blood Prince.
    • An especially Egregious example is the casting of Shirley Henderson, well into her thirties at the time, as Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of a Hogwarts student. (Of course, it's hard to tell with all that ghost make-up.)
    • Similarly, the casting of Alan Rickman as Severus Snape. Snape was a contemporary of Harry's parents, which means he should have been at most in his late thirties, more likely early-middle thirties (but conceivably as young as twenty-nine), at the start of the series. Rickman was 55 when he was cast as Snape.
  • Fake Brit: Almost averted, by fiat of Rowling herself. The cast is from the UK, with a few Irish actors such as the original Dumbledore, Richard Harris, Fiona Shaw as Petunia Dursley, and Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood (who is presumed British, though Lynch uses her natural accent).
    • A few slight examples: In the first film, the goblin Griphook was played by American Verne Troyer, but his voice was dubbed over by Warwick Davis. And Chris Columbus cast his daughter Eleanor in the non-speaking role of Susan Bones.
    • Irishman Jim Norton as Mr Mason at the start of Chamber of Secrets is another minor example.
  • Fake Irish: In a strange example, Rhys Ifans (who is Welsh) played Xenophilius Lovegood with an noticeable Irish accent to fit in better with his on-screen daughter Luna Lovegood (who is played by Irish actress Evanna Lynch).
    • And even stranger, and rarely acknowledged, example is Michael Gambon, who admitted right off the bat to adopting a slight Irish accent in honour of his predecessor - it's only obvious at certain times, such as when he loses his cool with Harry in Goblet of Fire, but it does give the impression that Dumbledore was born and raised in Ireland, or at least spent enough time there when he was young to pick up the accent and retain traces of it for a full century.
  • Fan Nickname: Not Lucius specifically, but his walking stick is oft referred to as a "pimp cane" called "Snakey".
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Most famously, Richard Harris and Michael Gambon as Dumbledore.
    • Throwaway characters tend to get recast after they get important, such as Parvati Patil, Angelina Johnson, Lavender Brown, Katie Bell, and Pansy Parkinson.
    • The character of Voldemort supplies two examples. The present-day Voldemort was first played by Richard Bremmer/Ian Hart and then by Ralph Fiennes. Sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle was played by Christian Coulson in the second film and by Frank Dillane in the sixth.
    • And unless that was an uncredited Ciaran Hinds having undergone mounds of plastic surgery in film five, it looks like this happened with Aberforth in the final films.
    • The Fat Lady was played by Elizabeth Spriggs (film 1), and then by Dawn French (film 3).
    • Lavender's recasting especially sticks out, as she actually changed race for the sixth film -- she suddenly becomes Caucasian when she was previously black. In the books, her race was ambiguous.
  • Romance on the Set:
  • So My Kids Can Watch: The line "my children/younger relatives begged me to take the part" and/or "my children/younger relatives would never forgive me if I refused the role" shows up with distressing regularity in cast interviews.
  • The Wiki Rule: Harry Potter Wiki.
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