Press Conference for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson

London, England, 22nd October 2005.

I wanted to know what you thought about growing up, was it something you guys have identified with a little bit in your own life and what do you think about your characters aging?

DR: For me it's great because there is so much pressure on the films now to get better and better and better and especially after the third one which for me was great and there was an awareness that we had to work really hard to go further with it to make it better because otherwise people would be very disappointed I think.  So for me it is also a lot of fun playing Harry as he's getting older because it's almost as if when you go from being... when we start Harry is 10, it's his 10th birthday and it's almost as if in real life, not just in the story, that people grow extra emotions which is partly to do with hormones and ALL the trouble that they cause and it's partly a thing about growing up, you have other aspects to you, so it's fun playing that in Harry as he grows older.

Emma Watson: There has been a lot of speculation about whether we're going to outgrow our parts, or that the films will take longer than we will but actually it works out really well because each film takes about a year and obviously that coincides with us in our year at school so we're pretty much growing along side them at the same time.  Everything that we're going through, in some cases they are too.

DR: There is always this thing of "Will you get too old for your part?"  Well, people play a lot younger than they actually are in real life, I don't think it's as big an issue as a lot of people make it out to be.

(Inaudible question - some reference to Cho Chang)

DR: (sarcastically) You know what, that was really awful for me!  (Laughter)   No, it was great, it was fantastic.  I don't know if Katie's been in and said "God I hated doing the hugging scenes with Dan!" or something but for me it was great fun!

Rupert Grint: I think all the characters have grown up and are more sort of teenagers.  Ron is a lot more moodier in this one and he has a few arguments.  I enjoyed doing all that as well.

DR: Yeah, that was fun.

Now that you've got a few films under your belt, can you talk about some of your favorite things?  What do you splurge on, what are your luxuries, what are your favorite gadgets?  Can each of you talk a little bit about that?

RG: Gadgets, yeah, I really do like gadgets.  I went to Japan last year and that's a good place for them, yeah.  But at the moment, I don't know...

DR: The camera?

RG: Oh yeah, when I went to Japan I got this spy camera that's disguised as a cigarette box and that's quite cool.

DR: (inaudible comment - something about the AD's office??)

EW: Probably my iPod - that comes out with me everywhere.

DR: I find the iPod thing hard because I'm quite obsessive about CDs so I quite like to have the actual CD with the little sleeve notes and the back and the pictures - which some may call sad! - so for me it's mainly CDs, books and DVDs I suppose.  I haven't changed much in the last five years so it's not particularly exciting but that's the honest answer!

The three of you are now part of this empire, this global phenomenon of Harry Potter movies not just the books, but yet you've got such low key profiles.  I mean, you're not individually famous or anything like that.  Is that all going to change now that you're real teenagers with hormones and everything, are we going to see you turn into Lindsay Lohan and start trying to really shock us with some stuff?  Are you going to be party animals?

EW: Hopefully not!

DR: Well I'm planning on buying twenty Porsches and crashing them all just for the extravagance!! I think it's a really good thing that we haven't... Because the characters are so well known and iconic, if we had gone to every party under the sun that we'd been invited to, it would have been hard for people to divorce what they see in the film from what they see in magazines and stuff and I think that would have been a mistake and that's why we basically only go to the premieres and stuff.

EW: Yeah, and I think we sort of have a responsibility to that as well.

DR: I certainly quite enjoy not having the high profile thing. I quite like that. I sort of feel like I'm fooling people because it's this massive thing and yet it's still quite a low key thing. I feel like I am tricking everyone!

(Inaudible question... something about school)

EW: I started a new school two years ago and at first I did get some funny looks but after a while they just accept the fact that you are there all the time. I didn't get treated any differently and that's how I like it.

DR: The only thing that I would sort of um... basically when you get back to school as Emma said, originally when you go there is a sort of novelty factor. People are going "ah, look who it is... that person" as if you are sort of running along with an extra arm or something. After a few weeks or something it sort of settles down and they just go "oh there's the kid with the extra arm" you know. It doesn't seem to affect everyone quite as much. The only time it peaks is if I'm ever at school - it only happened once really - when I was at school when the third film came out, then it went sort of fever-pitched, sort of mad, but it's not really a problem.

RG: Well I've finished school now so I don't really get the same sort of reaction as that. Getting recognized is sort of pretty weird anyway. I'm 17 now. You get the odd person sort of shouting out "Ron" or something, and my hair right now might sort of stand out a bit so I can't really avoid it at the moment.  Yeah, it's not really a problem.

Each of you has issues with each other going on throughout the film and I thought it was kind of interesting.  Rupert, you and Dan get to be at odds a little bit, there's a tension with Rupert and Emma a little bit.  Can you talk a little bit about the disconnect that goes on and how you guys, when you come back to a new film, is it like going back to school?

EW: I loved all the arguing, I thought it was really juicy!  We've always got along perfectly and I think it's much more that they would argue and there would be problems.  So I thought it was great fun and it's quite a dark book, this one, so it makes up for a lot of the humor which is nice, a bit of light relief.

DR: What's quite nice actually about the thing that goes on between Harry and Ron in this one, in the tension, was that it was funny to someone looking in on it but to them it's absolutely serious and they're really angry with each other and each of them feels that they have both behaved in a really bad way, sort of that they've been betrayed by them, and also it's mutual blame, they're both to blame for how they're acting with each other.  But to someone else outside watching it, it's funny because in the long run, it's actually quite trivial what they're arguing about, as a lot of arguments are, they seem really important at the time but two years later you can't remember how it started or what it was about, so as you said it does provide a lot of the humor - that and the dribbling orange juice!

RG: It's also again just sort of them growing up and it's sort of more natural I suppose.

I'd like to go back to Emma saying about this being quite a dark film but it's easily the funniest of the Harry Potter films.  Was it difficult finding the balance of the tone when you are playing emotionally grueling stuff and then quite lighthearted stuff?

EW: I think it's difficult for them to know quite what to do because there's such a huge audience which are children and you get such young kids being so into it so partly, the people who are making this film really feel that they don't want to make it too scary because they are going to cut out this huge audience who are so passionate, who love Harry Potter films.  At the same time, they want to be faithful to the book, which is a dark book, and I think they did a really good balance because I think it was faithful and I think this one is darker and I think it's scarier and I think that was the best way to go because from the very beginning it's always been that they are going to stay faithful to what this is about, not about getting a huge audience.

DR: It wouldn't have been so hard for us as for Steve Kloves, who wrote the script.  To adapt something as huge as the fourth book is a task that I certainly wouldn't envy - he did an amazing job on it.  To me, the humor's actually essential to the darkness in a way because if you have that darkness running the whole way through the film, in the end you'd be tired and it would be completely ineffective whereas if you've got the humor... What's quite nice is that Mike lulls you into a false sense of.... you've got that dark opening with the snake and the caretaker being killed but it then goes into like the first film again, at the Quidditch World Cup it's all sort of wide eyed wonder again, and it highlights the fact that suddenly they come out of the tent and everything's ablaze and everything's on fire - which means the same thing as a blaze so I don't know why I said both! - and it's more of a shock when you go into that darker world, so I think the humor's also essential to that.

EW: I don't think Mike's ever held us back in any way, he's always really really pushed us to make it so really real, how anyone would react in that situation rather than play it down a bit.  He really really went there.  The other thing about Mike is that he really really treated us like adults so he was expecting us to be professional the whole time where everything before, in some ways...

DR: We could get away with more before!

EW: ...but there were really no excuses and he really pushed all of us.  It was nice to feel that there was a real challenge.

Emma, in the ball scene, there is a magical moment when you stand at the top of the staircase and come down.  How many times did you have to shoot it and did you have input into your costume?

EW: That actually took a while!  I didn't realize that there were so many ways that you could walk down stairs actually until that day.  It was difficult, it was hard work because Mike was giving me all these directions - "Keep your head up, make sure the shot of your back is straight but don't make it too clumpy, make sure you glide smoothly" - and by the time I did it, I was an absolute wreck!  But hopefully it looks OK and it lives up to that amazing transformation that it is for Hermione.  As for the costume, I had a little bit of input but I loved it so much anyway that there was nothing I really would have wanted to change about it.  Jany, who's head of our costume department, created a truly magical dress - it's beautiful - and there were loads of fittings for it leading up to that ball scene and I think it looks great.

(inaudible whispering)

DR: I got to swim... not in a dress though!  That was amazing, that was quite hard work and those days I feel that I call what I did "work".  Normally, I think I've got this thing in my mind that work can't be fun because I always associate it with not enjoying it so I've never really associated Harry Potter with "work" but on these days it was tough.  It was fun but I'd trained for about six months beforehand and I'd go under there and I was sharing someone else's air from their scuba diving tank so we both had regulators and they'd say "3, 2, 1" and on the "3" I would blow out all the air in my lungs and on the "1" I'd take a very big gulp of air in and then it's that amount of action you can do with that amount of breath in your body.  And the hard thing was not just holding your breath, it was the fact that I wasn't actually allowed to let any of the air out because Harry's supposed to become a fish with gills - I suppose there's not supposed to be bubbles going around - so if I look at all pained...

EW: I think you'll know why!

DR: ...it was good fun and I have to point out that the most amazing stunt team backed me up who I trained with for six months and who were down in the tank with me so they were fantastic.

For each of you, now that it's been four films, what are your thoughts about whether or not acting is your long term life's choice or don't you know yet?

RG: I'm really enjoying it at the moment because doing all the Harry Potter films is really good experience and I want to do this in the future.  It's not a bad job and I want to continue with it, yeah definitely.

EW: I definitely wouldn't want Harry Potter to be the last thing I do but whether within this business it turns out to be actually film or not, because originally what I used to love was being on a stage and reacting to a live audience so maybe my calling is more in theatre but I don't know, I'll see.  There are so many different things that you can do within it that I don't know where I'll end up yet but I'm definitely looking around and I'm definitely interested, yeah.

DR: I just love doing it and I was trying to work out the other day what was the attraction, why do I love it so much, and I have no idea.  The conclusion I reached was that it was something to do with the idea of... maybe it's like a power thing because you have a character and in many ways it is up to you how that character is perceived by the people who are watching the film.  Well, it's not just up to you, it's in the script and the direction as well.  I love doing it, I have a huge passion for acting and also I'm quite interested in maybe - I know I've been saying this will happen within the next twenty, thirty years - but eventually maybe directing or something like that simply because I've been so inspired by working with Chris Columbus and Alfonso and now Mike and having conversations with David Yates who's doing the fifth film, and also talking to Gary Oldman because he directed this film "Nil By Mouth" which is a fantastic film - it's quite harrowing but it's brilliant - and talking to him about it and he said something which is when you're doing it, you're creating all the time, which is something that is quite appealing to me so I think that a long way down the line, that will be for me.

Which scenes that you filmed that were cut would you most like to have seen in the final movie?

EW: Good question!  Difficult to say.  I'm trying to think about what actually did get cut because when it's all put together and you see the final thing it all flows so well that you forget what is actually missing.

DR: Personally I was quite happy because all the bits I was worried about me being really bad in, they cut, which was wonderful!  There were just niggling little moments, there was one just before I went into the maze and I thought maybe I didn't do as good as I could have done there and they weren't in!  Which was fantastic!  Which obviously means I was right that I hadn't done as well as I could have!  I can't actually think of whole scenes that were cut, I'm sure the amount we shoot that there must be a whole lot that did...

EW: A huge amount was cut.

DR:.. but when you see the film, it does strike you as being so complete that it's hard to remember.

EW: Actually it's so good that I can't remember anything that was cut!  I can't remember!

DR: Huh, we're good!  (Laughter)

I'm going back to the parallels in the film and how much attention you will get from the opposite sex in your real life at school and you have boys chasing you, Emma...

EW: Um... I don't really know how to answer that, to be honest.  Dan, you're always good on this question, you take it!

DR: Do I have boys chasing Emma??  (Laughter)  You talk about parallels in the film, there is a parallel in that both me and Harry are not very good with women! (Laughter)  I think I've got better now but I think any man ever who says he has never had an awkward moment with a girl is a liar!  He's either a liar or he's delusional because he's been sitting there thinking things are going along really well and the girl is thinking "Who is this man and why is he still talking to me??".  So I think that's probably the main parallel with Harry in this film!  I would like to say that I got huge amounts of attention but I think there's a sort of dividing thing between what people think they're going to get when they see the film and then what the reality is - it's grimmer, possibly!  (Laughter)

RG: I'm pretty much the same as Dan, yeah!  I'm probably pretty similar to Ron really, he's not very lucky and he's had some bad experiences.

DR: He's the worst date in the world!  That's what I quite like about the thing with Harry and Ron is that they have the worst dates in the world with these poor girls because Ashan, the girl who plays Padma who has the misfortune of going out with Ron, is one of my best friends and I thought it was just great because this night should be the greatest night in the world for these girls but it's horrible.  And then you have this little bit outside which is quite sort of true at dance type things, where you've got sort of the "ballroom casualties" who are outside weeping because the night has gone so horribly!

EW: Hermione included!  That's the thing, I loved doing it so much because I could relate so much to what she was going through.  I so know that frustration where guys can just be so insensitive, but I can relate to a lot of things she experiences and all of her awkward moments, feeling so much to worry about.  What's really sweet, I think, about the relationship that her and Viktor have and what Mike really wanted to play to is that Hermione is so insecure about herself and she has never really had any attention from any guy before that when she sees Viktor looking at her, it's one of those sort of "Is that guy really looking at me?".  He wanted it to come across as though she'd quite literally been swept off her feet and does not know what's happening to her and she gets caught up in this whirlwind that is this incredibly famous Quidditch player and she can't quite believe it's happening to her so it's quite an emotional rollercoaster for her.

If you were a bit older, which of the more mature roles in the series would you like to have played?

DR: Sirius, probably.  Mainly because Gary Oldman played him and I think he's one of the most brilliant actors.  I think Sirius is very similar to Harry and that's what's sort of fascinating, which would have been fascinating had I played Sirius and which will be when I'm doing Harry in the fifth film is because it's sort of a relationship and there are two such things basically in the film, there are two relationships that are sort of based on mutual needs for someone who's gone.  Me and Sirius, it's partly based on the fact that we like each other, we're very close but it's partly based on the fact that we both miss James and he's clinging on to James through me and I'm trying to get to know my father through him and the same thing happens in a way with me and Cho Chang in the fifth film when I was the last person there when her boyfriend Cedric got killed and so we sort of have a crush on each other anyway.  So I think for me, having played Sirius, it would have been nice to look at Harry from another angle.  So maybe when they do the remake in fifty years time, I'll be lining up to play that one!

EW: Rita Skeeter, because she's so deliciously evil.  She's such a personality and I think she'd be so much fun to play because she's funny but there's also something very real about her and her costume was fantastic.

(Inaudible comment from the audience.)

DR: Ooh, we're in a room full of journalists!

EW: I think I'm not being very diplomatic today! I'm going to backtrack...

DR: What Emma meant...!  (Laughter)  People have.. a malevolent side to them!

EW: They can!

DR: (to audience) None of you!

EW: None of you!  Don't hit me!

RG: I've always liked Hagrid, he's pretty cool, yeah!  Probably him.  I don't know why.

DR: He's tall.

RG: He is tall, yeah.  That's one good reason.

Could each of you just go through who your favorite actors are who are not in the film and then maybe who each of your favorite bands are or musicians?

DR: Rupe, you want to go first?

RG: OK, yeah.  Favorite actors, I'm quite into comedy films mainly and when I was younger I always liked Jim Carrey, "Dumb and Dumber" and that, and I like Mike Myers as well, I like "Shrek".  Maybe them. 

DR: Music?

RG: Music, yeah.  I'm into sort of rock.  AC/DC are quite cool, yeah.

EW: This question's always such a killer, I hate it!  (Laughs)

DR: Look what you've done!

EW: I'm so sorry!  There's so many people, I've never really had one person I particularly idolized or thought "Wow, I want to be just like them!".  It used to be, when I was younger, Julia Roberts.  I used to just love her, I don't know, there was something so appealing about her and probably more recently I've loved what Natalie Portman does, not just on screen but as herself, how she's handled herself, I think she's done a really good job.  I love people like Renee Zellweger, who aren't afraid to look unattractive and really put themselves into a character role and to really be an actress instead of just sitting on the screen pouting and looking beautiful all the time because that's really not what it's about.   Nicole Kidman's had a fantastic career, she's done so many different things, she's been really successful, she's done some great things.  I could go on forever!  OK, music... Yet again, it's really difficult because I like so many different things, I've got so many different music influences in my life.  My dad's got quite a big influence on that, he's got me into Eric Clapton, B.B. King, loads and loads of stuff like that and then my mum... the Pretenders, Tina Turner, Elvis Presley, all that kind of thing and then for me myself, there's kind of a bit of a divide between what kind of music I like.  There's music that I like to dance to, I'm really into hip-hop at the moment, and then there's the things that I just like listening to, I love Damien Rice, I love music generally, whenever you come into any room in my house I always have music playing.

DR: In a way, it's quite hard to think of actors who I want to work with that we haven't because we've been incredibly lucky really to work with the best British actors of their generation really, I mean David Thewlis and Gary Oldman and now Ralph Fiennes, Brendan Gleeson and Michael Gambon.  It's really sort of insane, who we've worked with, it's amazing.  Other actors I would like to work with... I actually think, you said Natalie Portman (to Emma), she is a fantastic actress and also beautiful, which is also a plus if you're going to work with someone.  I'm trying to think of other actors...  There's a German actor who I think is absolutely amazing -  I don't know if it would ever work because I don't speak German! - Daniel Bruehl, who was in "The Edukators" and he was in "Goodbye Lenin" as well and he's amazing.  When Alfonso did it, he came out at the end - Gael Garcia Bernal is amazing.  And... and... and... come on now, think of someone who speaks English!  Older actors who I really look up to just for how they were - Peter Sellars... When people talk about classic British actors, you talk about Laurence Olivier and things but Peter Sellars just did the most amazing films like "Being There" and "Dr Strangelove" I think he played four parts in or something.  Is it four or three?  Three.  And so he's just amazing.  But with music, that comes easier to me, which is possibly not the right way round it should be.  I got an album the other day by a band called We Are Scientists, a band called... yes, good!  It's so rare that my taste gets recognition from someone!  That's a very special moment!  Who else at the moment... The Rakes, Dogs, Hard-Fi... The new Franz Ferdinand album is extraordinary, it's brilliant.  They all sound sort of indie but I also like sort of more orchestral type like... has anyone heard of... OK, hands up if you've heard of a band called Godspeed You Black Emperor?  (Some hands go up!)  YES!!  Fantastic!  Brilliant!  And my dad got me into David Bowie and T-Rex and stuff like that and "Electric Warrior" - what a brilliant album!!  But when we were in San Francisco, he bought "Melanie's Greatest Hits" - IT'S BRILLIANT!  It's absolutely fantastic!  There's this one song called "Look What They've Done To My Song, Mom" - it's fantastic!  So those are probably some of the ones at the moment!

(The announcer calls for the last question from the media present in the room.)

I know it's very difficult but what memory of this film will you carry away with you, when you're lying in bed and you look back and think "Oh my God, that was brilliant"?

DR: Seeing it, probably.  When you see eleven months of your life and you go in every day and you do it, it's like, particularly with Harry Potter, it's a very gradual process because you piece it together day by day and refine it and refine it and refine it and it goes through all these different stages and there's fifteen minutes of credits, thousands of people work on it, all of whose work is as important as the last, it amounts to a massive thing at the end of it, which is just amazing, and it's a fantastic thing to see because even if we hadn't... I believe we've made a great film, a really good film... even if we hadn't, the sense of achievement would still be this amazing thing so that would probably be, for me, about the film. 

EW: My answer's quite similar to Dan's.  You'd think that working on something for the five years that I've been doing this for, you would think that the novelty would start to wear off and it would start to get a bit boring, you'd start to get a bit complacent and want to move on but a couple of weeks back, the trailer showed for the first time on ITV I believe, and I remember coming into the kitchen and it was on the screen and it said that it was going to play in five minutes and I literally was filled with excitement all over again about the fact that I was part of it and that I was in it and that I could be excited about it and it's all started and I was going to see it soon and all the waiting and when I saw it I literally... (???)... I was so excited again and probably starting to see it all come out.  Because it's a huge wait - you've worked on a film for eleven months and then you have to wait six months to see it and it's painful.  You so want to know what it looks like and so...

RG: You know I find it hard to actually remember anything really, (everyone laughs) because it was quite a long time ago so I'd have to say seeing it!  Seeing the end product, definitely, yeah.

DR: It's far too early to be reminiscing though, I think.  We're all getting nostalgic far too soon but it's quite a nice question to end that with.

(The announcer then calls for questions from media participating via international phone link.)

This question is for Dan.  What is the one impression from this film that you wish the viewers would take away that perhaps they didn't get from the first three films?

DR: I think the main theme of the entire film, sort of like a story arc, and it comes across more in this film than in the last film, is that the whole series is about a loss of innocence.  When you go into the first film it's all very wide eyed and he's quite naive, thinking that because it's a magical world, that it's going to be better than the world he's come from.  Whereas in actual fact it's not - it's actually got further extremes.  There are extremes of joy that possibly are more than in the human world but also the depths that man can sink to, like Voldemort, and I think this film starts to wake up to that fact even more than the last one and I think he jumps to the realization that if he's going to make it in life then he's making it alone.  And I think that's probably the main thing that he experiences, that he discovers in this film and hopefully people will realize that without me telling, without reading that!

After all these years, I'm sure you're incredibly invested in these characters in this story.  J.K. Rowling is writing the seventh book now, the final book.  If there was something that you could say to her that you would really want to happen or don't really want to happen before this series is finished, what would it be?

DR: If Quidditch isn't absolutely necessary then maybe don't .....????.... because I read in an interview with her a while ago saying it's become quite a chore writing Quidditch now.  It's quite tough to film, you know... it's tough on both of us, no one's benefitting!  (Everyone laughs) So maybe that would be what I would say, but then it is also incredibly exciting for people to watch so there is that as well.

EW: I'm going to make Rupert really uncomfortable now!  For goodness sakes, Hermione and Ron need to get together, it has been so long now!  They're so wrong but they're so right and ...???... and then they just need to get on with it and if that doesn't happen, I'm going to be really frustrated! (Lots of laughter)  They're still ongoing so hopefully they're going to end up together.

RG: Er, yeah, um...!  A little bit different... No, I was actually looking forward to Quidditch really so I've sort of ruined it for you!

You said that on this film, Mike Newell treated you as adults and perhaps that hadn't been the case before or as much so before.  In what way did that manifest itself, how did you know that you were being taken seriously and more like adults this time around?

DR: You ready to take on the answer, I'm still thinking!

EW: I don't know, I think it was just the way that... I mean, Alfonso put a lot of trust in us and it was so nice that he really wanted to hear what we had to say and what we thought but Mike kind of took it to a new level. I'd be doing something really difficult and I'd be saying to him "I can't get this right, just tell me what you want me to do, tell me how you want this to be because I'm going crazy!" and he'd just say "I can't tell you how to do it, I'm not going to tell you how to do it so just think about it".  It was just nice that while he guided us really well.  We felt a responsibility for ourselves, for our roles, how we came across and he put a lot of trust in us to do that.  It was really really nice.

DR: I suppose sort of the main that I got out of Mike's direction is that we're now old enough to appreciate being analyzed and broken down.  The fact is, there is such a rigorous process of drafting the script on Harry Potter, on all films, on Harry Potter we must go through about seven before we get to the one we start shooting on, so basically by that time, if it is in the script, it pushes the story forward and it advances things and it's there for a reason and Mike was fantastic about going into detail.  I remember the first time we were rehearsing with Mike, it was me and Matt Lewis, the boy who plays Neville who's fantastic, he's the greatest guy and on the page, the scene was around an inch and a half long and we spent about an hour and a quarter rehearsing it and going through different... and he was going right, if this is how long an inch and a half script takes then how long will it be when we get to the twelve page scene with Voldemort but we were still slightly apprehensive about how we were going to be pushed but it was very exciting and he realized that we are now old enough to appreciate really going into detail about a scene and I think that was the main thing that changed.

RG: Er yeah, the same really.  I've finished school now but for me it's like it's grown up a bit more now anyway.  But Mike was great, he was really into your own sort of input and the uniform and everything and... yeah, definitely.

Now that you've played these characters for over four films, do you feel a connection to them like twins or best friends and are you excited about doing the rest of the films?

EW: I'm hugely attached to Hermione's character because I know, over the past four years, I know any of you who interviewed me earlier on, but there is so much of me that goes into her and so much of my experiences and one of the things that Mike did is he made me think about it and all the acting and regurgitating my own experiences and sort of bringing them to... there's really no other way of saying that!... and applying them to what Hermione was going through.  So I know that if anybody else played Hermione, it would actually kill me.  I wouldn't be able to deal with that at all - I'd go after her!!  (Lots of laughter)  So yes ....???.... for me to be choked up.

DR: A threat to any future Hermiones!  Not a pretty image!  But no, you're absolutely right, he did make us draw from our own experiences.  I think you can't really help but feel attached... I certainly feel attached to him in some ways but ...kind of like a twist... but for me, I don't know if it's so much that... in a way I don't know if me playing him has... how much I am like him now or being so close to him over the past five years has influenced my own character.  I mean, I don't think I'm going to get a complex over it or anything but it's sort of an interesting thing.  It's very hard to separate yourself from him in some ways but ultimately you go home at night and it's not like you stay in character.  It would be very hard to be a method actor on Harry Potter because then you'd have to find a character of ultimate evil somewhere. (Barks at Rupert for breaking something further along the table - lots of laughter.)  So that would be my not particularly clear answer to that question!  (Prompted for second part of answer.) Oh, and that was the other part, yes!  Ultimately it comes down to the fact that are we still all enjoying it?  I mean, if we are, it would be sort of stupid not to.  If the script's good and it's a challenge and an interesting director - I speak for myself, I'm not necessarily speaking for everyone here, I don't want to put words into everyone's mouth - but I would feel that as long as I'm doing enough other stuff at around the same time then I think it would be... and also, I sort of try to read the books when they come out very impartially and not make up my mind but the fact is that while reading the sixth book, there were bits where I was going "God, I would love to do that!".  It was so good.

(Inaudible question from audience - something about getting hints about future books from Jo?)

DR: No, no, no!  I tell my friends I do!  I tell my friends I know and then make up stories! But I don't actually get... no.

RG: I've always thought I could relate to Ron in little ways, like we're both ginger for one, we've both got big families.  Obviously after playing him for quite a long time, you sort of get to know him and I'm really looking forward to all the next films I think.

EW: I think it's really difficult when people ask these questions because it's such a huge commitment that I don't think anyone can appreciate, unless you're honest, the amount of time everything takes and eleven months is huge and it's not just a little bit every day, it's all day.  We work adult hours and so I think I would never want to do it if I wasn't going to give 100 per cent.  I really so sort of focused on this one now, I'm so excited by this one now that I'm not really thinking about the future at all, I'll take them one at a time because otherwise you just get a little bit overwhelmed I think.

DR: I'm not in any way trying to undermine... Just in case we get prosecuted, we don't actually work full adult hours, we work very long hours (lots of laughter) and when we're not... (And Dan and Emma end the conference by getting sidetracked in a very jumbled conversation about how they spend so much time in tutoring after they've finished filming that by the end of the day they feel as though they've worked a full "adult" day!)

During the earlier press conference for GOF director Mike Newell and producer David Heyman, Newell was asked about how he had put Dan "through his paces" in this film and how Dan had coped:

Mike Newell: He is a brave boy.  He's a rotten swimmer, or he was when this began and he had great trepidation and came to me about the swimming.  And there wasn't any way around it, he had to swim, he had to spend huge amounts of time underwater in the tank and apart from anything else, he was by no means sure that he had the physical resources to do that.  You couldn't say that he was frightened of it but he was only a step away.  Nonetheless, he knuckled down and he did what he had to do.  There was another shot that I was actually there for and I could see that he was absolutely terrified but he had to do it...

David Heyman: Falling off the broom?

MN: Sliding down the roof.  During the dragon chase, he's knocked off his broom and he slides down a very steep roof, which he did for real.  He slid 30 feet from a 40 foot high gantry, with a safety wire on of course but nonetheless...  But nobody had to say "Sorry Dan but you've got to do it".  We would ultimately of course have said that but nobody had to say that because he will read himself the riot act and tell himself what he's got to do.  So I don't think he's naturally... he's not going to turn into a stuntman... but he's a very responsible boy, he knows what he must do and he simply does it.

DH: Actually from the first film, when we began the process, Dan was not a physical boy and he wants to be more physical and actually we encourage that.  We put him together with our stunt team and he is now a jock of sorts, I mean his body has changed, he's really much more physical than he ever was.  At lunch break, for example, several times a week, he'll go down to the gym and work out.  It's not something that we're actually asking him to do, he just loves to do it.  He likes to do his own stunts.  He's very brave, as Mike said.  In the underwater scenes, he logged 41 hours of dive time on his logbook.