HARRY POTTER Matthew Lewis Panel – Steel City Con April 2022

and I'd like to say like 17 18 but I mean like 20 21 before I thought, "I think I can talk to him," so I got up the courage to talk to him and he was just wonderful and very warm and generous with his time, his advice, his career and as an actor. I am also a very generous actor and I wish I had known that before, but that is life and I have learned it now and I and I and when I meet people now I think that right now you use the time you have. I have and you know, I guess it's not a regret because it's shaped me too, but yeah, yeah, I wish I'd known he was the great man he was before so I could have had more experiences with him. but what I did have was, he was charming and memorable and he was, yeah, a great guy, okay, we have a question here on the right, what were the pros and cons of being a child actor, oh, you know, I had good luck. right, because I was in these big movies that were unprecedented at the time, the highest-grossing movies and the biggest movie series of all time, um and yet, because dan rupert and emma took the lion's share of the reviews, you know, they got all the attention, I really have to. being in those movies and walking red carpets and doing all these wonderful, incredible things, but honestly, on the weekends I used to go home to Leeds, in the north of England, and no one cared, no one, you know, nobody cared.

I never got to Leeds in 2004. I was able to go about my business and got the best of both worlds in that sense, so all the kinds of pitfalls that you discuss about child actors going off the rails and it's difficult for me. Honestly, I feel like I had a very normal childhood, although privileged, I admit, but it was normal. I went to a very normal school and none of my friends cared. They still don't care, my wife hasn't seen all the movies she doesn't care about, yeah, and I think in my personal life I lean towards people who haven't seen them because they don't care, you know. and and uh and yeah, when I was young, I got away with it a little bit.

I was really, really lucky in that sense and I think the issues that child actors often face, over and over again, that Dan Rupert and Emma really struggled with. and you have to admit that they navigated incredibly well is that you don't have a normal childhood, you don't know, at school everyone talks about the job you have, teachers can love you or hate you, you know it's the extremes um and that can be problematic for reasons and obviously there are privacy issues and uh, you know, I know, I mean, I went to Dan's 18th birthday party, I think it was his 18th birthday party and he booked this place in London and two of them had to have come. times to the party so that at the end of the night they could get rid of the paparazzi so that one could leave on a moped and everyone would chase him and then he would get in a car afterwards. that and go the other way and I never had to deal with that, you know, I didn't have to employ body doubles to get away from paparazzi or anything like that, um, I mean, I think in Leeds people think that paparazzi are a guy. of Italian dinner um there's nothing to worry about where I'm from um so I was very lucky um obviously there's I think it's even harder now honestly I think we were lucky enough to get there just before the advent of social media um and I think it would be a lot harder to be a child actor now in a weird way, you know that kind of old Hollywood era where being a child actor was terrible and then Now it's probably terrible again and we hit that sweet spot in the middle and obviously we we had each other, which was a big difference, a big difference, we weren't alone, we had each other, I think if social media had existed, um. my 18 19 20 year old experiences on display may not have been as pretty, but we got our way, we got lucky with all that kind of stuff, so we got our way and honestly the only thing I would say is one downside, maybe the negativity that you maybe get on social media, especially with new projects and things like that, it can be quite complicated to deal with sometimes and there's a lot of toxi

city

in terms of anyone in the public eye. right now because it's so accessible, you know, with social media, um, but well, it's a small minority, a small minority, and the vast majority are you wonderful, warm people, who are so lovely to be around and lovely to me and the reason we keep doing it. these conventions, so you know, I don't even want to waste my breath talking about the negativity, I've had a great time, um, yeah, okay, let's go to the other side of the room with a question right here, hello.

Um, you've had the great fortune to work on Harry Potter and also all creatures great and small, some of the most beloved series in literature. Looking back, are there any favorites of yours that you wish you had been involved in? I would still like to be involved in literature, okay, wow, that's it, yeah, well, I mean, honestly, Harry Potter was like I was a huge fan of Harry Potter, that was a dream come true in itself. I feel like choosing someone else's traps. Like you know he's greedy, right? um, but sure, I mean, there are so, so many book series and books that I've seen that I wish I could have been a part of.

It was a great um. I'm still into the Witcher series, I read all those um and um long before there was a video game and and and um and uh and definitely not definitely before the TV series it was a world that I was aware of um and um And then when that It was something I hadn't seen the series, I heard it's very good, someone clapped there, they probably saw it, yeah, yeah, so those were his books that I love and I would like. I've been involved with those um, what else do I read? I read a lot.

I'm a pretty profuse reader, so I'm trying to think of other things. I'm trying to think of something good. Obviously I like to have. Many of the rings are amazing, aren't they? It's strange because when we were younger everyone thought that Lord of the Rings was like our great rival, everyone says, oh, a lot of the rings are Harry Potter, I'm like Lord of the Rings is Well, better than Harry Potter, What are you talking about? That's so good. I would like to participate in those. What else did you do? oh, some roald dahl, eh, okay, interesting, yeah, i get raw, wonderful, i really like being a part of some roald dahl stuff, um, i'm sure he must have a huge catalog that we don't have, that we haven't even touched.

However, I'm sure we'll get through some of that, yeah, definitely, that's great. The others, what else? What other book series should we be doing? Where else can I be? Can somebody help me? Okay, forget it, next question. We have time for two more questions, oh really, and I have two boys here who are dressed strangely and I have some questions for you that they are eager to answer: there is a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw, okay. Okay, then he'll go first. Then he asked me what your favorite quote from the Harry Potter series is. Well, could I settle for someone?

I'll probably say yours is maybe why I'm always around and I'll tell you a story about that in a second um but no, it's my favorite one that I said was actually a little selfish, I admit it was one that I wrote myself um that it was when we blew up the bridge uh in the deathly hallows and um there was no line written in the script that was neville was supposed to go up and just get up and me and I said david I think I should say something he says what do you mean I said I don't know I'll just do it and I said oh that turned out well and he liked it and we kept it I wrote don't let anyone tell you anything different I wrote that yeah, yeah, that's cool, right? um, but I'll tell you about um uh, why is it always me?

The day they hung me from a chandelier they hung me, they hung me from a chandelier grammatically correct, they hung me from a chandelier and, um, I had a harness on and they lifted me up and then they put the rub on the chandelier in the back so it looked like like They were hanging me and what happened was for some reason there was a miscommunication and they started releasing the harness outside so they were lowering me down but my robe was still attached to the chandelier so they actually hung me from uh from that and uh again I don't really remember much you know I mean you know the blood loss in the brain will do that um but uh my mother said I had turned a shade of blue um something like Ravenclaw What you had there, um, before Greg Powell, our wonderful stunt coordinator, who wasn't supervising this at all, was just there, um, and it was like, you know, he started yelling to take me down and, um, they did it and it was all.

Well, and I didn't die, but it was touch and gone, and yeah, why is it always me? Hell stays quieter, uh, wait a minute in my, in my memories, there, my favorite line from all the movies is, Gary Oldman. um, uh, I did my weigh-in for 12 years in Azkaban, oh I love it, I've only seen it once, but it makes me laugh when I say all the time, you know when you're in a supermarket or a restaurant like oh, do you Does it matter to wait? I waited 12 years in Azkaban and I am what I do, yes, yes, I like it.

Well, we only have time for one more and she'll have it all right. We have one more question. here, okay, so if you could be any character in the franchise, who would you be? Oh, these are so hard. I'm still thinking about a few more books. I can't think of what the hell, um, I'm reading Fahrenheit 451 at the time we should do that, uh, I could do a guys montage on that, uh, sorry, uh, yeah, um, do you like it, do you Like, Ken Follett, have you ever read any of Ken's books, do you follow the pillars of the earth, all of them, could I be in them, would I like that? being in them, yeah, you're fine, I think I want to be a villain, I think I want to be a bad guy, I've had the luxury of playing villains over the years and not particularly nice people, and it's a lot of fun. um because I'm so pathetic in real life I'm a rule follower um yeah I mean I barely speed up honestly like I don't so someone even invited me to a job like If you saw a sign that said this is a one way street but you like the turn to be right there, would you go up the one way street and I'd be like no, no, I don't know, I'm pathetic so I'm playing? um, a character who, who, who is on the other side of the law, um, is very funny and, um, and it's as an actor, it's true, I mean, that's why we act really, I mean, I have an ability very short attention span.

In case you haven't noticed, um and um, I've never actually had a job that I wanted to do, I mean even really acting, I've never had a job and I'm like, oh my gosh. that's my dream job and the best thing about acting is that I get to do something different every time and I never know what I'm going to be and I've played a soldier, I've played a police officer. I played a rich landowner. I've played a sex offender or all these different things. It's not really an occupation. It is? But it's different. And I've played all these different roles, Jesus, and it's exciting to play different roles. um, the thing about playing villains is that it's so far removed from what I do and how I live my life that it's different and unique and interesting, so I guess I'm going to bring this back to the question, uh, I would play a villain and I would play, I'm probably too old to play Draco Malfoy now, so I'd probably have to play his father, right?

Lucious, Lucious, Malphite would be good, obviously I could never do anything like that. to what to what Jason did um but yeah something like that would be fun yeah god I hope I answered the question it certainly does thank you Matthew welcome back as always he'll be back at his table to sign he'll always be a pleasure to have you. here let's leave it

matthew

lewis

it's always a pleasure thank you very much thank you john he's still in the room this is john glover and you're watching the spotlight of the fandom be sure to like, share and subscribe lionel luther recommends it , have some fun, follow your fandom. you