Finding the Childhood Wizards of Harry Potter Posted by: Kim Lance

The first step in casting the right children for the film series was to find the perfect Harry Potter.  With a strong desire to stay true to the books vision of Harry, director Chris Columbus  and producer David Heyman had to search through several Potter possibilities.

Searching for Harry Potter

“It was not easy to find a boy who embodied the many qualities of Harry Potter,” Heyman explains.  “We wanted someone who could combine a sense of wonder and curiosity, the sense of having lived a life, having experienced pain; an old soul in a child’s body.  He needed to be open and generous to those around him and have good judgment.  Harry is not great at academics; he has flaws.  But that’s what makes him so compelling, so human – that he’s not perfect.  Harry has an ‘everyman’ quality, yet he is capable of great things.  He makes us all believe that magic is possible.”

Columbus and Heyman were frustrated with their inability, after severeal auditions and tedious search, to find the perfect Harry.  It became particularly frustrating when Columbus found his Harry when seeing Daniel Radcliffe, ironically the final choice for the film, and was told that he was unavailable to play the role.

“We had auditioned hundreds of potential Harry Potters, and I was still unhappy with the results,” he recalls.  “The first casting director, in a fit of total frustration, threw up her arms and said ‘I just don’t know what you want!’  Sitting on a shelf in the office was a video copy of David Copperfield, starring Daniel Radcliffe.  I picked up the video box, pointed to Dan’s face and said ‘This is who I want! This is Harry Potter!’ The casting director said, ‘I’ve told you before, he is unavailable and his parents aren’t interested in him doing this film.’”

After several more months of searching, Heyman and screenwriter Steven Kloves ran into Daniel Radcliffe and his father, agent Alan Radcliffe, at the theater.  Heyman, like Columbus when seeing the David Copperfield movie cover, was immediately struck by a sense of assurance that Daniel Radcliffe was the Harry they had been looking for.

“Alan and his wife Marcia introduced us to their son Dan during the intermission,” said Heyman.  “It was all the clichés – lightning struck and the skies opened!  All through the second half of the play, I couldn’t concentrate.  The Radcliffes left before I had a chance to speak to them, so I had a very sleepless night before calling Alan the next morning.”

Overcoming the Radcliffes hesitation about putting their eleven-year-old son in a contract for several consecutive films was hard to overcome.  Daniel’s parents had a good idea of the time and stress that could go into making a series of blockbuster films, but once it was made clear of the desire to protect the children involved in the film, the Radcliffes were eventually won over and Harry Potter had been born.

Potter Sidekicks:  Ron and Hermione

Once Radcliffe was cast as Harry Potter, finding the boy behind Ron Weasley and the girl behind Hermione Granger was more defined.  With Potter as the key to the triangle of wizards, the other two main characters had to work well the the child portraying Potter.  The casting crew soon realized who the group of three would be.

“We immediately fell in love with Rupert Grint,” Columbus says.  “He’s extremely funny and has such an incredibly warm presence.  Emma Watson embodies the soul and the essence of Hermione Granger.  When we saw Dan, Rupert and Emma together onscreen, they had amazing chemistry.  It was electric.  We knew we had found the perfect team.”  

With the perfect team cast in the main children’s roles of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, the wizardly school was beginning to take shape.  Casting Harry was difficult, but the Harry Potter film crew knew that he was the essential Harry Potter and the Hogwart’s family was developed around that decision.