A father and son and on-set injuries: 10 things you didn't know about the Harry Potter cast.

It’s been 12 whole years since the final instalment of the Harry Potter series had us crying over our popcorn and sniffling into our choc tops, but the fact you clicked on this article proves that once you’re a Potterhead, you’re always a Potterhead. 

With most of the cast still working in the industry, they’re out there dropping new stories in interviews all the time and you’ve got to be ready if you want to stay on top of it!

So we’ve compiled a list of things you might not know about the very cast that made our childhoods so magical.

Feeling nostalgic? Watch the trailer for the final film Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 here. Post continues below. 

1. Rupert Grint felt suffocated by the gruelling film schedule.

Rupert Grint recently spoke to Bustle about his work with director M. Night Shyamalan, however it’s only in the last few years that Grint has rediscovered his passion for acting. 

Being cast as Ron Weasley at the mere age of 11 and committing to that role for over a decade, the actor admitted to the publication that after the Harry Potter films finished; he felt completely exhausted and detached from acting. 

"In the movies, we merged into one. By the end of it, I was playing myself. The lines were blurred," he said.

"Potter was so full on... [filming] all year, then we’d promote the rest of the time. It was quite suffocating," he continued. 

"I wanted a break, to reflect on everything. It was an out-of-body experience for a while, but I think we finished at the right time. If we continued, it could’ve gone downhill."

Grint also touched on the fact that the entire world seemed to wait for the child stars to fall.

"I’ve always felt there was this expectation for us to go off the rails, follow the child star stereotype. That’s always been something to fight against."

While most of the cast dealt with their fame well, some came understandably close to going 'off the rails'.

2. Daniel Radcliffe developed a drinking problem, showing up to set drunk.

As possibly the most famous child star in the world for several years, it’s no surprise that Daniel Radcliffe grappled with his level of fame.

Speaking to Off Camera, the actor opened up about his dependency on alcohol between the ages of 18 to 21 when he struggled with the paranoia of being watched constantly.

"In my case, the quickest way to forget about the fact that you’re being watched is to get very drunk," he told the publication. 

"And then as you get very drunk, you become aware that, 'Oh, people are watching more now because now I’m getting very drunk, so I should probably drink more to ignore that more.'" 

Radcliffe has been completely sober since 2010 after coming to the realisation, with the help of his friends, that his habit was getting out of control.

"Ultimately, it was my own decision. Like I woke up one morning after a night going like, 'This is probably not good.'"

One thing the actor is adamant about was that he was never actively drinking on set, however he definitely filmed scenes where he was already under the influence.

"I can honestly say I never drank at work on Harry Potter," he said, "I went into work still drunk, but I never drank at work. I can point to many scenes where I’m just gone. Dead behind the eyes."

3. Evanna Lynch made her own jewellery for Luna Lovegood.

Now for some happier facts. (It wasn’t all doom and gloom on set I promise.)

If you’re a Potterhead, then you probably know the story of how Evanna Lynch got her role as Luna Lovegood. 

She was a huge Harry Potter fan and used to send letters to J. K. Rowling asking to be cast in the films.

However, at the time, Lynch was amid a long battle with anorexia, which had already hospitalised her at 11. 

Rowling wrote back telling the young girl to focus on her recovery first and then audition for a role. She did just that and was selected out of 15,000 other children to play Luna Lovegood. 

The producers found Lynch’s own personality so similar to Lovegood's that they told her to accessorise the character herself. 

In homage to a reference in the novels, the actress designed the iconic radish earrings Luna Lovegood wears.

Image: Warner Bros.

4. Rupert Grint is married to Georgia from Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.

Yes, Rupert Grint has been in a relationship with Georgia Groome, star of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, since 2011.

The pair actively avoid the spotlight together, keeping their relationship very private and only off-handedly mentioning each other in a few interviews over the past decade. 

Whilst we know very little about how they met, the couple had their first child together in 2020, a daughter they named Wednesday. 

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5. Mad-Eye Moody and Bill Weasley are father and son.

The actors! The actors are father and son! Don’t worry, J. K. Rowling hasn’t tweeted some absurd tidbit about how Mad-Eye Moody is actually a Weasley or anything like that. 

But actor Brendan Gleeson (Moody) is real-life father to Domhnall Gleeson who played Bill Weasley. 

Whilst breathing life into Alastor Moody in the fourth film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Gleeson brought his son on set to soak in how actors work in a professional setting. 

The experience must have resonated because years later when casting for Bill Weasley was opened, Domhnall applied and got the role as the eldest Weasley son. 

Brendan Gleeson was already an acclaimed professional, but he’s now up for an Oscar this year for his role in The Banshees of Inisherin.

Domhnall Gleeson has had an illustrious career in blockbuster films including About Time, Star Wars and award-winning films such as Ex Machina, Brooklyn and Mother!

He may be a nepo baby but he’s a talented nepo baby.

Image: Getty

6. Rupert Grint actually has arachnophobia.

He’s ginger, he comes from a large family, his first name starts with 'R', Rupert Grint couldn’t have been more perfect for the role of Ron Weasley... but apparently he can.

Grint has openly talked about his phobia of spiders in several interviews, even avoiding travelling to Australia because of his fear

His character’s fear of spiders is integral to the plot of the second film, coming to a climax when the gang come face to face with Aragog the giant spider in the Forbidden Forest. 

The actor admitted he compulsively checks his shoes and socks before putting them on and his sheets and pillows before lying in bed because of his crippling fear that a creepy crawly could be hiding there. 

7. Daniel Radcliffe needed a voice double when he was going through puberty.

What made the Harry Potter franchise so unique is the fact that we watched these kids grow up and turn into young adults, almost in real time. 

The film’s production crew faced unique challenges that can only come with catering to several children going through some pretty intense biological changes at the same time. 

Puberty hit Daniel Radcliffe just as the first film wrapped, with his voice beginning to break. 

The studio hired a young voice actor Joe Sowerbutts, who was specifically picked because of how alike his voice was to Radcliffe’s, to dub over some scenes in the film.

8. Helena Bonham Carter injured Matthew Lewis on set.

She plays excellent villainous characters, but it seems Helena Bonham Carter may have taken her method acting a little too seriously during a scene between Bellatrix Lestrange and Matthew Lewis who plays Neville Longbottom.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the actress admitted: "I think I took my sadism a bit too literally."

"I did something terrible. By mistake, I poked him in his ear. I thought I could brandish the wand like a sort of Q-tip and clean out his ear. Sort of torture it. But unfortunately, he moved toward the wand as I was prodding it. And it actually perforated his eardrum," she said.

I see the vision, I really do... but what on earth was she thinking!

"Isn’t that horrific? I damaged him! He’s such a nice young man, he didn’t admit to me that he actually had some internal bleeding about three days later."

How very Neville of him.

9. The actress playing Moaning Myrtle is older than you think. 

We all know and love old Moaning Myrtle, the crying ghost that haunts the second floor girl's bathroom, so much so that students avoid it completely.

Immortalised as a ghost, Moaning Myrtle is supposed to be a student around 14 years old however the actress playing her was 37 years old when she was first cast.

So, why did they make that choice?

Well, it seems the filmmakers wanted an older actress for the role so that she wouldn’t change as much as a child would as the years passed between films as ghosts don’t age!

Image: Warner Bros.

10. A crazy fan tried to adopt Tom Felton.

This one is a little scary. There are always fans that take it too far and this one took it WAY too far.

Tom Felton spoke to Yahoo Movies UK sharing that an American fan once sent him adoption papers to sign.

"I’ve got some very strange letters," Felton told the publication, "One man wanted to adopt me. He had changed his name legally to Lucius Malfoy and wanted me to change my name to Draco Malfoy and to legally adopt me. I declined!"

I wonder if Lucius Malfoy still goes by Lucius Malfoy or whether he came to his senses and changed his name back... 

Feature Image: Warner Bros.