Matthew Lewis, the actor of Harry Potter, has revealed his character’s iconic remark that he totally ‘detests’. and it may surprise fans.
In 2001, the actor introduced the world to his portrayal of Neville Longbottom in the first installment of the film franchise, quickly portraying the young wizard’s lovable and good-hearted demeanour.
In the years after, Matthew has been in Bluestone 42, Death In Paradise, and Me Before You, as well as the second season of Romesh Ranganathan’s BBC comedy series Avoidance, which is now showing.
In a recent interview, the 34-year-old revealed that he dislikes rewatching the Potter films because he is’very highly critical’ of himself.
More than a decade after the final installment, people still tell Matthew about their favourite Neville phrases when they encounter him in person.
‘“Why is it always me?” was always a popular one with Neville, because I guess that sums up his character a little bit,’ he said, in reference to the line said by the Gryffindor student in the second movie, The Chamber of Secrets.
‘Recently, I’ve noticed a lot of love for the, “Oh my god, I’ve killed Harry Potter!” line, which I detest,’ he stated, bringing up the line from the fourth film, The Goblet of Fire.
‘I really hate that line. I don’t hate it because of its writing. I mean, it’s funny. I thought my delivery was… I just didn’t commit to it.’
Matthew stressed the need of ‘commitment’ to the line when acting, regardless of genre.
‘It’s really quite simple. It’s about “Do you believe it when you say it?” because no one else is going to believe it if you don’t,’ he outlined.
‘I never believed that line when I said it, and every time I said it, it sounded ugly and I hated it. I’m absolutely astonished that people resonate with it for some reason, they all find it funny. If I ever heard it, I think my head would explode. I haven’t seen the films since they came out and stuff like that is why.’
HBO Max is currently developing a television remake of Harry Potter. So, would Matthew contemplate returning to the wizarding realm, either as Neville or in another capacity?
‘The truth is that you obviously never say never, you would never say no to such a thing. It was 10 years of my life. The opportunities that I have today, the very fact that I’m doing Avoidance on BBC One, it’s all come off the back of that. It’d be mad to suggest otherwise,’ he responded.
‘But that said, it very much feels to me at least, like a chapter of my life that is over. I was content to finish – by their own admission, some of the others possibly weren’t.
‘I felt very ready to finish – 10 years was enough for me. I was fortunate enough that my character got what I consider a complete arc. I got to tell his story and finish his story. I got the closure.’
He added that after a decade on Potter, he was ‘ready to do something different’, and he doesn’t currently have an ‘urge’ to return – but if the opportunity arose on the TV reboot, ‘of course I’d look at it’.
Avoidance is one of Matthew’s fascinating undertakings after Harry Potter, in which he plays love rival Brett opposite Romesh’s Jonathan.
‘It’s probably my only worry about this show, because I think it’s really funny. It read really funny. It performed really funny. My only worry is that we had so much fun, like you got to come into work and make each other laugh for like eight, 10 hours a day,’ he recalled.
‘Rom was making me laugh and I think if he wasn’t fake laughing, I was making him laugh. You just hope that that translates to the audience. I hope it doesn’t look like a lot of actors having too much fun. I hope that people will find it as funny as we did.’
Looking ahead to the future, Matthew pointed out that despite ‘not trying’ to keep returning to the genre, comedy ‘is something that I seem to keep falling into’.
‘I do tend to really enjoy it when I’m doing it. It’s just the existential dread immediately before and immediately after that is less pleasant. But it’s not something that I’d be against carrying on with, with the right people as well. It’s so crucial. It’s so important, when you do find the right people and it clicks,’ he said.
‘Truth be told, this industry is insane,’ he continued. ‘I’ve been in it for 30 years now, which makes me feel sick to say but it’s true. And inexplicably I’m still in it. I’m still surviving.’
Bringing it back full circle to his Potter days, Matthew stressed that playing Neville put him in the ‘fortunate position’ that he can ‘very much choose to do things as and when’.
‘Avoidance was one of those, that for me, I thought it was worth telling, and I certainly was going to enjoy doing it. I just hope that people at home enjoy it as much as we did because we had a really good time.’
Avoidance is available to watch on BBC iPlayer, with new episodes airing on Fridays at 9.30pm on BBC One.
Source My Celebrity Life.