London Storm clouds are gathering over the world's most famous wizard in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth film to be adapted from J.K. Daniel Radcliffe's teenage Harry has acquired stubble on his chin and angst in his soul, facing a sense of isolation, a showdown with his evil nemesis, Lord Voldemort and just as scary his first screen kiss.
"He is very troubled," Radcliffe, 17, told The Associated Press recently, a few weeks ahead of the film's opening. "He's troubled by the fact that he doesn't think anybody is believing in him, his friends don't seem to understand him ..
. He lets that out in various ways. "Order of the Phoenix," which opens in the United States on July 11 and Britain the next day, is directed by David Yates, a Briton best known for the multilayered TV thrillers "State of Play" and "Sex Traffic.
" Yates brings a touch of grittiness to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which as the film opens is undergoing a creeping takeover by the bureaucratic Ministry of Magic and its emissary, the deceptively rosy Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton). That, combined with nightmares that link Harry ever more closely to the dastardly Voldemort, bring a sense of impending doom to the wizarding world as Rowling's saga takes a turn for the darker. Yates said his goal was "to introduce a real sense of emotional and spiritual angst and danger.
The series is ready for that." "I wanted to push (the actors) and they really wanted to push themselves," he added. The actors, in turn, say they loved the challenge.
"David got us at a time when we were ready to be pushed, we all knew that, and he knew it and he was damn well going to push us," Radcliffe said. "I couldn't thank him enough for that." The result, Radcliffe says, is a more mature and complex Harry Potter a hero with magic powers but human frailties.
"It's nice to know that he's real and he experiences real anger and rage and frustration and loneliness," Radcliffe said. "That's what makes him a proper hero as opposed to the Superman perfect-at-everything sort of hero. Apart from the angst, it's Harry's first kiss with fellow student Cho Chang (Katie Leung) that will likely attract attention from moviegoers.
Radcliffe who earlier this year appeared nude onstage in the play "Equus" in London's West End admitted to some trepidation about the kiss. "I was a bit nervous about doing it because I've known the crew and everyone for so long," he said. "It was a little bit strange.
But it was Katie, and we were both very professional about it. "This isn't a particularly sexy or exciting kiss it's very sweet and very clumsy, like all first kisses are. The Harry Potter books have been translated into 65 languages and sold more than 325 million copies since the first volume, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," was published in 1997.
The frenzy that now attends each new book launch is reaching a climax with the publication of the seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," on July 21. Radcliffe and co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who play Harry's friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, have been at the center of the Harry Potter storm for almost half their lives. They seem remarkably levelheaded a quality they attribute to the support of their families, and of the Harry Potter filmmaking family.
All three stars have signed up for the final two Potter films, the first of which "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" starts shooting in September. Until "Deathly Hallows" is published, the actors have no more idea than ordinary Muggles about how the series will end, and whether the prophecy Harry discovers in "Order of the Phoenix" that neither he nor Voldemort can survive while the other one lives means the young wizard will die. News-Leader.
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All comments posted should comply with the News-Leader.com Terms of Service. "He is very troubled," says Daniel Radcliffe of his character in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
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