Latest Harry Potter flick brings on the teens

By Claudia Puig
USA Today

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe),top, gets a bit darker and angrier in this film, as does the film's lighting. Once again, Harry's in mortal danger. Hermione (Emma Watson), middle, gets to doff the robe for more fashionable teen jeans, and flexes more girl-power than in the previous films. Ron (Rupert Grint) is part of the magical threesome, in a film that production designer Stuart Craig says is about the teens "confronting their innermost fears." Gannett News Service, Warner Bros. photos

As director Alfonso Cuaron puts the final touches on "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," due in theaters June 4, it's clear some things are the same about this Harry Potter, and some things are very different. Our visit to the Leavesden Studios set of one of the year's most anticipated movies found a feisty, sometimes furious Potter this time around.

He's still a wizard, of course. He still attends Hogwarts, and Ron and Hermione remain his best pals. He continues to wear those glasses. But the kids are lankier, their hairstyles cooler, and they spend more time in jeans and sweatshirts than in their school robes.

"It took me three films to get Hermione in jeans," says Emma Watson, who plays her. "To get out of the robes with the tights and the itchy jumpers. Whoo-hoo!"

Before filming started, Cuaron asked the young actors to write an essay about their characters and themselves.

"The kids were very brave," he says. "They bared their souls. They were very eloquent. At some point, I wanted to publish them, then I thought no, I promised them it was just for the work of the film and it's their personal stuff."

And they held free-flowing discussions "about what it means to be 13," Cuaron says. "How it's different from 12 or 11. It's an archetypal age. Kids change so much. You want to change the way you dress, the way you look, the way you argue."

In "Azkaban," a moodier Harry is forced to face up to challenges much worse than the onset of the teen years. It will be a darker movie, both visually and in tone. And with a new director in Cuaron, the movie's focus will be on characters and rich visual details as much as on special effects and magic. There are demons within and without in Harry's world this time around.

As Harry and his friends return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for their third year, they are plunged into the mystery surrounding a notorious escaped prisoner who may pose a threat to Harry. Our wizardly hero must also face his own fears of death and despair in the form of the ghoulish dementors and spooky omens predicting his demise.

"This is my favorite of the books," says Daniel Radcliffe, 14, who plays Harry. "It's a weird one because it almost reinvents the character.

He's more hostile. He's got a lot of teenage aggression, which all people at 13 do."

The hormonal changes that come with being a teen will be visible on screen, and they're also evident in exchanges between the young actors on the set. There's much discussion of crushes and break-ups. Watson interrupted an interview to share whispered gossip with a crew member about a cute guy.

When Hermione takes Ron's hand in a scene, Watson makes a quintessential 13-year-old grimace. The movie called for "some embarrassing hugging to be done. With Ron (Rupert Grint). We have kind of a love-hate relationship."

For moviegoers, it has been a love-love relationship with Potter and his pals. This new movie's darkness may test that passion, at least for younger fans.

Harry's journey in the third film begins with the terrifying announcement that Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), a convict believed to have killed Harry's parents, is on the loose and likely has his sights on Harry next.

"This really shakes him as a person," says Radcliffe.

Harry is constantly looking over his shoulder for Black and living in fear of the inhuman dementors that suck the joy out of anyone coming into contact with them. They are situated as guards at Hogwarts to protect Harry and the student body from a surprise visit from Black. Author J.K. Rowling has called the dementors the physical manifestation of depression.

"The first movies were action/adventure films, with big chases," says production designer Stuart Craig, who worked on all three. "This film is concerned with confronting their innermost fears."

Says Cuaron, "Harry's always been a kind of outsider, but now he becomes more aware of that forlornness. It's about accepting who he is."

Harry has already come to terms with his magical powers, but being a teenager is no easier for him than for the average Muggle.

"He's now becoming slightly more used to things like seeing a giant squid in a lake and all this magical stuff around him, the ghosts and everything," says Radcliffe. "Whereas at first it was completely amazing, it's now more commonplace. He's becoming slightly more relaxed in terms of how he deals with school, but he's a lot more paranoid about how he interacts with people."

Cuaron most recently directed "Y Tu Mama Tambien," a Spanish-language film about two teenage boys and their sexual yearnings and adventures on a road trip through Mexico. He sees Potter as a distant, younger, PG-rated cousin of those randy lads.

"Obviously the tone of the movies is completely different," says Cuaron. " 'Y Tu Mama' was very realistic, with social observation. Here it's a magic world, a fantasy, a bigger canvas. But emotionally it's exactly the same thing. It's a journey of a character's seeking his identity and accepting who he is. To step out of the shadow of his father, for instance, is one of the themes."

And, as in the nonmagical world, the characters' emotional lives have more intensity.

"The hormones are buzzing, and so is their anger about things," says Cuaron. "And rather than repressing those things, it's about letting it flow. It's not about encouraging it, but just letting it be. I didn't want those emotions very polished. Sometimes they got carried away. I would let them. I didn't want them to be neat. I wanted it a little raw."

The Mexican-born Cuaron, who also directed the acclaimed "A Little Princess" (1995), has allowed his ethnic heritage to gently imbue the magical atmosphere.

"In his heart and in his soul, he has magic and a sense of wonder," says producer David Heyman. "There's a Latin spirit here, a magical realism. It's a bit intangible, but oh so seductive."

Light, or lack of it, plays a part in the film. Cuaron has created a distinct look, with the colors darker and more muted, the music more haunting, and the tone edgier.

He used more wide-angle shots than in the first two films, to heighten the sense of drama, says cinematographer Michael Seresin. "The story is more dramatic, so the lighting is more dramatic, high contrast, more shadows. It has a very different look and feel from the previous films."

There will be visual treats for the careful viewer.

"There are lots of extraneous little bits of magic appearing in the background," says Craig. "Strange animals that live in Hagrid's hut, for example. There's somebody's tail poking through the floor. They're real throwaways, but there's extra richness, extra detail in these wide shots."

Hagrid's hut has expanded from a one-room shack to two rooms. His bedroom has teddy bears and fur skins. His living area is decorated with hanging pots and pans, and oversized chairs to fit his gargantuan frame.

And there are new characters: Oldman as Black, David Thewlis as the werewolf Professor Lupin, and Emma Thompson as Madame Trelawney, the ethereal divination teacher with long wavy gray hair, flowing gowns and a spacy manner.

A visit to the magical village of Hogsmeade reveals colorful Victorian-styled storefronts. At the students' favorite candy-store hangout, Honeydukes, Cuaron has added coconut clusters and lollipops from his native Mexico to the mix of colorful sweets.

There's no need to worry that any of the characters will turn saccharine this time around, however.

The bookish Hermione strays a bit more from her studies in this movie.

"This is a real girl-power film," says Heyman. "Hermione helps and leads Harry on many occasions."

She decks Harry's Hogwarts foe, the obnoxious Draco Malfoy, after he sneers at her mixed heritage (she's a wizard with human parents) and nearly causes the execution of a harmless hippogriff. After Hermione slugs Malfoy, she exclaims, "That felt good!"

It's a move that "Azkaban" audiences are likely to cheer, and the punch proved therapeutic in easing Watson's newly developed teen angst.

"It was great fun," Watson says. "We did a couple of takes, and I was saying 'Come on, come on, let's do it again.' "

It's not easy being a famous young wizard

In "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (2001), 11-year-old Harry had to:

• Adjust to the idea that he is a wizard.
• Escape his cruel Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley and go off to a magical school, Hogwarts.
• Confront an enemy, Draco Malfoy, at Hogwarts.
• Fight a three-headed monster dog named Fluffy.
• Fend off Professor Quirrell, the minion of Harry's nemesis, Lord Voldemort, in a fight to the death over the sorcerer's stone.

In "The Chamber of Secrets" (2002), 12-year-old Harry:

• Pilots a flying car and crashes into a furious Whomping Willow tree.
• Fights former student Tom Riddle (aka Lord Voldemort) in a scary secret chamber.
• Tangles with giant spiders in a dark forest.
• Battles a giant snake.

In "Prisoner of Azkaban" (opening June 4), 13-year-old Harry:

• Is pursued by prison escapee Sirius Black.
• Tangles with the eerie, happiness-sapping dementors.
• Travels back in time to save Buckbeak, a giant flying hippogriff.
• Must foil Scabbers, a rat who is really the villainous Peter Pettigrew.
• Loses his state-of-the-art quidditch broom, seized by authorities who fear it's rigged by evildoers.
• Is haunted by omens of death.

'Sorcerer's Stone' given extra scenes for TV

ABC hopes to make ratings magic with a night of television built around the network debut of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" — and a sneak peek at the third Warner Bros. film in the franchise.

The 2001 movie, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint and directed by Chris Columbus, will air at 6 p.m. Sunday in an extended, high-definition version that includes previously unseen footage.

It will be followed by a 10-minute look at "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," directed by Alfonso Cuaron, which opens in theaters on June 4.

All told, ABC will devote four hours to the Harry Potter phenomenon as part of May "sweeps," a key ratings measurement period used to help set local advertising rates.

The broadcast will include interviews from the "Harry Potter" set with Radcliffe, Watson and Grint.

The films, which include 2002's "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," are based on the best-selling books by J.K. Rowling.