[HPFGU-Movie] Re: Utilizing Rupert

[AnitaKH]

Susanne <siskiou at vcem.com> wrote:    
I have no idea about the politics behind the scenes, but it
 just seemed really odd how much Ron was changed from movie
 one to the subsequent ones.
 
 One thing I'm pretty certain of is that Rupert didn't ask
 the director/script writer if he could please be turned into
 a whimpering coward and his lines given to other people, or
 changed to fit his "new image". ;)
 
akh weighs in:

At the risk of sounding like I'm not a Rupert Grint fan (and I'm a fan of all three), there may be some - I hesitate to say "politics," but we'll go with that for now.  

I have extremely limited camera experience (couple of commercials), but I've been on the stage for over 20 years, and I've often seen instances where the working relationship supercedes raw talent.  I've seen directors who give lots of extra bits to an actor who may by no means be the best, but he/she is very receptive to that particular director's notes, and the director just really likes his/her interpretation of lines.  

I read some article when POA was being filmed that mentioned Rupert had trouble not breaking into laughter.  For a given director, that might be perfectly acceptable (Mark Williams talks about encouraging the boys to crack up during takes in COS); for another, it might mean less screen time.  

Rupert has had by far the best comic timing from the beginning, so it doesn't surprise me he gets the lion's share of the laugh lines.  In fact, I remember thinking, "Hey, that's Harry's line in the book," with one of the laugh lines he gets (can I remember which movie, here at work?  Of course not!)  The down side is that if you are carrying the load of comedy relief, it doesn't leave much time to be deep or serious.

Interestingly, my boyfriend, who has not read the books (even though I buy them for him for Christimas, but I digress) does not see Ron as a whimpering coward.  I think some of that is the result of knowing aspects of his literary character which haven't been translated to the screen.

Dan is definitely getting better at comedy, although Rupert's still king (the Phelps twins have developed quite a nice comic rhythm, too).  That gives the screenwriter and the director more latitude to divvy up the comedy relief.  

akh, who's not sure she made her intended point, but blames her head cold for incoherence

		
---------------------------------
Get amazing travel prices for air and hotel in one click on Yahoo! FareChase 

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]