Happy actor thrived making Harry look like a hero

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This article was published 14/07/2011 (5565 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK CITY — “Why is it always me?” asks the character Neville Longbottom in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, upon being strung up by his ears by nasty pixies.

It is the distinctive call of the eternally victimized that helped categorize Neville throughout the series of Harry Potter films and books as the magic maroon, the pudgy pariah — a wiz-nerd, if you will.

He has mostly been around, it seems, to make the heroes look good. In the first film, Neville is the kid whose lack of skill on a broom results in Harry’s (Daniel Radcliffe) discovery that he can ride a broom like Willie Shoemaker could ride a horse.

But as the series wraps up with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which screens at midnight tonight, Neville rises to the occasion, shall we say, when his beloved Hogwarts School is besieged by Voldemort and legions of dark wizards.

The actor who has played Neville from the beginning, 22-year-old Matthew Lewis, says he made himself aware of Neville’s role in the story not long after receiving a copy of J.K. Rowling’s final instalment in the series. He was amazed to discover (Spoiler Alert!) that not only does Neville play a pivotal role in the war against Voldemort, he has a scene facing off against the Dark Lord himself.

“I was in bed, actually, when I was reading that,” Lewis recalls. “J.K, Rowling had told me a few years previously that she had just finished (the series) and she’d written a rather exciting bit for Neville Longbottom, and I didn’t really know what to expect, to be honest.

“But then I read the book and I remember sitting bolt upright in bed and thinking, ‘Wow, that’s going to be cool.’

“I knew Neville was special and that he had something to give in this last book, but I didn’t think it would be something as epic as that.”

The truth is that Lewis had, at times, wondered if he would be in all the movies, as Neville had been a character who, in another screenwriter’s hands, might have been deemed expendable.

He need not have worried. Steve Kloves, who has written all but one of the Potter screenplays, was a big fan.

“I love Matthew Lewis because he’s one of those guys who, no matter what I write, makes me look a lot better than I am,” Kloves says. “I think all of us loved Matt from day one. He just brought such humanity to Neville but in such an interesting way. It was not a typical interpretation of that character, so I knew Matt would find a way to remind us who Neville was, but also take him to a whole new stage and make it believable.

“He’s incredibly nimble and nuanced and he really makes that work.”

Even so, Lewis had his work cut out for him on the days he filmed his confrontation with Voldemort, played by Ralph Fiennes.

“I remember being very, very nervous. When it came to the day when we had to do that scene, I was terrified. Ralph is a very, very frightening man, especially when he looks like that,” Lewis laughs, referring to Voldemort’s snake-like visage. Fiennes himself added to Lewis’s tension.

“He did this thing and to this day, I don’t know if he did it on purpose, or whether he was even aware of it, but he just stared at me the whole time; even when other people were speaking, his eyes never left my face.

“It was like he was studying me and I just went to pieces,” Lewis says. “I felt like I was in the hardest exam of my entire life. And it was frightening, but it spurred me on and gave me that extra boost, and that kind of challenge for an actor is what you need, I think. Actors tend to be in their element when they’re being pushed out of their comfort zone.”

Lewis began his acting career at age five. He has acted on stage prior to the end of filming Harry Potter, and he says he intends to continue.

“I’ve just had the most amazing experience for the past 11 years. I’ve met the most wonderful people. I’ve travelled the world,” he says.

“I feel like I’m living somebody else’s life,” he says.

“And if I never work again, I’ll always look back and say. ‘You had a pretty good run there.'”

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca