Despite being supremely proud about kickstarting the Harry Potter film universe, 20 years later, director Chris Columbus still thinks he did not get the infamous scar right.
At the time when Columbus signed to do the Harry Potter movies, a law stated that no prosthetics could be applied to actors below the age of 16. The production struggled with this dilemma for months. In the end, the make-up artists had to whip out magic of their own and draw out the scar on 11-year-old Daniel Radcliffe using simpler techniques.
If Columbus had a time-turner, this is probably one key detail he would go back and re-master:
We couldn’t really utilize a prosthetic scar, which is kind of what I saw, like a real scar. That’s the one detail, an important detail, that I wish I could go back and tweak.
Chris Columbus
In retrospect, this might seem like a small detail to worry about — I certainly don’t remember ever thinking that the scar was inaccurate. Plus, the lightning bolt has now become an iconic part of the franchise.
But in a way, Columbus’ anxiety over the scar makes sense. When he took the helm of directing Sorcerer’s Stone, the novels had already gained millions of fans worldwide, who would be ready to nitpick any detail, big or small.
As someone who had to visually create the wizarding world from the ground up, his creative decisions were of utmost importance. It wasn’t aided by the fact that only four books had been out by then, and Rowling had sealed her lips about what’s to come.
Columbus would have to lay a foundation that would be both, strong enough to carry on a legacy and open-ended enough to accommodate any details he did not know about.
Other than the scar, Columbus thinks he did great. He reveals that Ralph Fiennes did not play Voldemort in the first movie, but even that maneuver transitioned well. The greatest sigh of relief is that when other directors took over, the movie series still maintained a sense of cohesiveness.
This year, the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone film celebrates its 20th anniversary. Two decades on, the fervor of this magical world continues to bring home new, younger fans.
About Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a film series based on the eponymous novel series by J. K. Rowling. The series is distributed by Warner Bros. and consists of eight fantasy films, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and culminating with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
The film series follows Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and his journey to take down the evil wizard Lord Voldemort and save Hogwarts, the Wizarding School he attended, with his best friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.
The series was mainly produced by David Heyman, and stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson as the three leading characters: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger.
Source: Polygon
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