Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #753, Visiting The ‘Harry Potter’ TV Show Set Turned a Skeptic Into a Believer
Cold Open
Micah: It almost looks as if Vernon and Molly are holding hands…
[Andrew gasps]
Micah: … which, again, just doesn’t sit right.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Unless we’re getting a whole different backstory than we were anticipating.
Andrew: They’ve got to expand the story somehow, and Molly and Vernon are going to have an affair. [laughs]
Micah: It is HBO.
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the world of Harry Potter. I’m Andrew.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: I’m Laura.
Andrew: And we’re your Harry Potter friends, gathering to talk about the books and the movies and the upcoming TV show, and this week, the audiobooks too. So follow us in your favorite podcast app, and you’ll get new episodes every Wednesday. And this is a Harry Potter TV show and Harry Potter full-cast audiobook episode; we’re going to be reacting to the latest Harry Potter TV show news, and reviewing, finally, the full-cast audiobooks. And helping us with today’s discussion is The Leaky Cauldron’s Amanda Kirk! Welcome, Amanda, to MuggleCast.
Amanda Kirk: Thank you. I’m delighted to be here.
Andrew: We’re delighted to have you. You’re in a beautiful home we were just commenting on. You said you were in Ilvermorny, actually, because you’re up in Massachusetts. [laughs] How is Ilvermorny today?
Amanda: It’s beautiful. We’re getting a real taste of spring after a week of Dementors with some cold, gray, rainy rawness that has lifted now.
Andrew: Amanda, when we have somebody new on the podcast, we ask you for your fandom ID. Could you please give us your fandom ID?
Amanda: Well, I prefer the odd books to the evens on the whole, and choosing amongst 1, 3, 5, and 7, I’d pick number 1, Philosopher’s Stone, because it’s our introduction to the magical world, and for me, nothing beats that first experience of Harry finding out he is a wizard and visiting Diagon Alley for the first time, and seeing Platform Nine and Three Quarters and the Hogwarts Express, and after Book 1, it’s all old hat after that.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Amanda: For favorite film, I think I would have to say the same. The first movie, and for the exact same reason. My Hogwarts House is Gryffindor, but that’s a little bit of a cheat, because the Sorting Hat really wanted to put me in Ravenclaw, so I guess I’m a Gryffinclaw.
Andrew: Okay.
Amanda: Luckily, the Sorting Hat takes one’s preferences into account…
Laura: Correct. [laughs]
Amanda: … so I was able to persuade it to.
[Andrew laughs]
Amanda: My Ilvermorny House… well, I live there now, and since I’m on the faculty, and since I attended Hogwarts, I don’t technically have an Ilvermorny House.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Amanda: Pottermore tried to put me in Pukwudgie, and I just can’t with such an undignified House name.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Amanda: It just, yeah, doesn’t sit well with me, so I might abstain from that one.
Andrew: Okay, that’s fair. [laughs]
Amanda: Patronus… well, according to Pottermore, it’s a tabby cat, and I’m happy with a cat Patronus; I just wish I didn’t share one with Umbridge. Her Patronus is also a cat.
Andrew: Thank you for those answers. And like I mentioned, you’ve been at the Leaky Cauldron website. You are… what’s your role there and how long have you been there?
Amanda: So I’m the senior editor, and I have been there for nine and a half years now.
Andrew: Wow.
Laura: Oh, congrats.
Amanda: I wish I could say nine and three quarters, but just two more months, and then that would be accurate.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Okay. [laughs] That’s awesome. And you also visited the set of the Harry Potter TV show, and you wrote a report on it for Leaky; we’ll have a link in the show notes. But what can you tell us about that experience?
Amanda: Well, it was beyond reassuring. I was truly amazed and surprisingly emotional when I was there, and I have so much more video, photos, info that I am eager to share, but as you can imagine, HBO naturally wants to limit spoilers, and there’s a strict NDA, and I am not allowed to say anything more than I have been allowed to reveal in that piece that I wrote for Leaky, which they vetted so that it doesn’t say anything they don’t want to come out at this stage. I will be allowed to share more as we get closer to the premiere of the series later this year, and I really hope to be invited back to see further construction in the sets and filming future seasons. As I wrote in that piece, I went into this really cynical and dismissive of the series. Prior to visiting the set in person, I was just thinking, “Oh, yeah, God, they’re just trying to milk more money out of the franchise, get the next generation into it.” And I didn’t think that TV production values were going to be as high as movie production values. I had this outdated idea that not as much money was spent on a TV series – small screen versus big screen, special effects and whatnot – and I learned that I was completely mistaken.
[Andrew laughs]
Amanda: I mean, yes, of course, they want to make money, but they are not half-assing it at all. On the contrary, I was struck by how every single detail is a labor of love for everyone involved, and I just did a complete 180 and I am now enthusiastically looking forward to this.
Andrew: Well, back in the day, HBO’s slogan was, “It’s not TV, it’s HBO,” and what you’re referring to is that HBO money.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Ooh, they’ve got some money to spend on this, and they’re going to, and we’re glad. We’re glad. And it’s great to… I loved your opening comment there, that it was really reassuring what you saw when you visited the set, so that’s exciting. Well, thank you again, Amanda, for joining us today. And we’re going to circle back to the TV show in a moment, but first, listeners, if you love MuggleCast like the fandom loves a new Harry Potter trailer, head over to Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and you can support us there. For a limited time, sign up now and you’ll get this year’s MuggleCast Collector’s Club stickers. Six gorgeous new stickers. Oh, Micah is holding them up right now. He’s got them; he’s going to send them to you. Six gorgeous new stickers honoring the show and fandom await you. We can’t do this without you, so thank you in advance. And thank you to recent patrons, including Amy, Tran, Riley, Janelle, Melanie, Kenny, and Genevieve. And coming up soon in bonus MuggleCast… we’re going to be recording a new one today, right, Laura?
Laura: Yeah, so we’re actually going to be talking about Harry Potter pop-ups. I know that we’ve all been to some of those over the course of the last couple of decades, honestly – pop-up shops, pop-up bars – but we’re specifically going to be talking about one in Denver that Warner Bros. shut down, so we’re going to talk about our feelings about that, but also just about Harry Potter pop-ups in general, and kind of where we land on this debate about whether or not pop-ups should be shut down.
Andrew: [laughs] Sounds good. We’d also appreciate, listeners, if you left us a review in your favorite podcast app or told a fellow Muggle about our show. And you can visit MuggleCastMerch.com to buy official show gear, like a “Choo-choo” shirt or a “Security Nightmare” hat.
Micah: That was good.
Andrew: Oh, thank you.
TV Show Coverage
Andrew: All right, let’s get back to the TV show. So we got some exciting news a couple of weeks ago: HBO has renewed the Harry Potter series, and they have announced that Chamber of Secrets is happening. Filming will begin this fall. Jon Brown, who was also involved with HBO’s excellent show Succession, and was a writer on the first season of the Harry Potter TV show, has been elevated to co-showrunner for Season 2, alongside Season 1 showrunner Francesca Gardner. Francesca said,
“As we have laid out our plans for the overlapping production schedules to finish Season 1 by Christmas and to return to production for Season 2 this autumn, it has become clear that bringing on a co-showrunner is the key to maintaining our momentum. I’ve loved working with Jon from the very first day we met on Succession through to these recent times together on Harry Potter. Not only do I have huge admiration for his writing, but he’s also a brilliant collaborator and a lovely person. We are lucky to have him.”
So not a surprise that we’re getting Season 2, but certainly reassuring, to use Amanda’s word from earlier. I love this idea that they’re going to have two people running the show now, because they do need to move quick; these kids are going to grow up fast. But what do you all think this means for the release? If they’re going to start filming later this year, does this mean Christmas 2027?
Laura: That might be kind of a tight turnaround, honestly. Because when did they start filming Season 1?
Andrew: I guess sometime last year, right?
Laura: Yeah, I thought last summer, so that’s a year and a half based on this Christmas’s release. So I don’t know. Maybe not another Christmas release for Season 2?
Andrew: Summer 2028? [laughs]
Laura: Maybe?
Micah: That seems far.
Andrew: It does seem far. That’s not fair.
Micah: And you also have to remember, too… I mean, I don’t know how close they want to keep these kids to their age for when they’re actually going to the premieres for these shows or doing press for these shows. I would imagine they want to keep it somewhat consistent, and if you’re looking at anything beyond a year later for Season 2, that could get a little tricky.
Laura: Yeah, but haven’t they come out and said this is not going to be a season per year?
Andrew: Yeah, which is kind of the norm for streaming shows these days, unfortunately. It’s been a major source of frustration for people. So basically, what we’re saying is we’re impatient. We want it all now. Move faster.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: Well, yeah, of course.
Andrew: Get another showrunner. Co-co-showrunner Andrew Sims is going to handle the back half.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Amanda: Remember when we were waiting for the books and the movies with those two-year gaps in between, especially with the books when you didn’t know what was going to happen? I mean, the movies, okay, there wasn’t that element of surprise, but for the books, it was just torture waiting in between. At least this, we know what happens now. But I could be wrong about this – I don’t know much about streaming shows – but I would assume that once any show has set up the sets, the props, hired the actors, onboarded them, all of that, that the first season is probably the longest production cycle, when everything is new and different…
Laura: True.
Amanda: … but then probably once it’s all set up and down to a system, they only have to add the new elements and the new characters and the new sets to something that’s already a going concern.
Andrew: That’s a good point.
Amanda: Getting your restaurant up and running is a bigger deal than adding a new patio to the restaurant. It just seems like they should be able to do subsequent seasons more quickly than the initial season. I could be wrong about that.
Andrew: No, that’s a good point. I think we’re feeling the same way about Hogwarts Legacy. They’ve built out this whole world already, so it should, in theory, be easier to do an expected sequel. I think the post-production side is the side that’s going to take the longest. They’re going to have to do the special effects, editing, reshoots, all that. But yeah, I agree. I think that’s a good point.
Micah: And then there’s also… we’re looking at, what, at least eight weeks from Christmas, so let’s say end of February, beginning of March. If we were to get Season 2 at the end of 2027, that’s actually not that far away when you consider when Season 1 will actually conclude.
Laura: Right.
Andrew: By the way, in The Hollywood Reporter’s article about this renewal, there’s this quote:
“Chamber of Secrets is often considered by fans to be the weakest of Rowling’s seven Harry Potter novels. But the show’s creatives have been looking to deftly expand Rowling’s beloved source material and will doubtless find some fresh ways to elevate the story.”
What are they talking about? “The fans hate Chamber of Secrets“? That’s a weird take. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, I wonder where they got that from.
Amanda: Well, where does it rank?
Micah: That’s a good question.
Amanda: I mean, I myself, I don’t disagree. I would put it seven out of seven if I were rating the books.
Andrew: Oh, interesting. Okay, maybe Amanda fed that to The Hollywood Reporter.
[Everyone laughs]
Amanda: Right, right. They called me.
Andrew: Well, so I will say, I looked on Goodreads, and I looked at the reviews for each book. Books 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 all have a 4.8; Book 1 has a 4.5; Book 2 does have a 4.4. But it’s still really good; it’s not a bad book.
Amanda: It’s all relative. If they’re your seven favorite books, and it’s your least favorite of your favorites, it’s still one of your favorites, right?
Andrew: Yeah, right.
Micah: It’s true.
Laura: Can I say that I feel like Chamber of Secrets is better in retrospect when you’ve consumed Half-Blood Prince?
Andrew: Oooh, yeah.
Laura: So I think one way they could potentially elevate that story is – and we’ve talked about this on the show before – them potentially leaving Easter eggs for events that are to come later on in the series, because we have the full story at this point. So could they pull any threads to leave hints about Horcruxes, for example, in Chamber of Secrets? I think that would be kind of cool. But I’m still… yeah, I agree. I like Chamber, but I think it does fall further down the list for me if I have to stack rank them. But again, I feel like when you’re doing the whole connecting the threads thing that we do with 1 and 7, 2 and 6, and 3 and 5, the books are kind of like sisters.
Andrew: Yeah. All right, well, I thought that was kind of interesting to…
Micah: It’s a harsh review.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: It is.
Micah: What about the movie too? Do we all feel that Chamber of Secrets ranks pretty low for us?
Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: I’d say so, yeah. And I mean, Movie 5, I think, was way too rushed, and Movie 4 I didn’t really like either, so I can’t wait to see those adapted. Give them time to breathe.
Amanda: Well, I think the biggest disaster was Movie 6. I think they did the most violence to the characters and the book, the storyline. I find Half-Blood Prince almost unwatchable; they just made so many changes from beginning to end that just don’t work.
Andrew: All right, well, let’s move on to a recurring segment in these TV show episodes: This Month in Paparazzi Photos. And it looks like some reshoots were happening earlier in May, and there was one photo in particular: Molly, Fred, and George Weasley with Vernon Dursley on the set. Looks like maybe they’re in a train station. And also in this group of characters, Hermione’s dad, possibly? Does that look like Hermione’s dad? I mean, we don’t know what Hermione’s dad really looks like, but it looks like it could be Hermione’s dad.
Laura: Maybe.
Andrew: I mean, the context clues here: It’s Vernon and Molly walking together. They’re probably picking up the kids at the… well, but Fred and George are there too.
Micah: Could just be a shot of them going to film.
Laura: Yeah, this may not be…
Amanda: That’s what it looks like.
Andrew: Oh.
Micah: Because I don’t think they would really spend any additional time together than they had to.
Laura: I don’t think they’re hanging out, no.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Andrew: Okay, all right. I was reading these like that was them actually filming a scene. Nonetheless, this is presumably Hermione’s dad. That’s the speculation online. And I also wanted to say, Fred and George are really well dressed, which kind of surprises me, because I thought the Weasleys were supposed to be a little… this sounds mean, but poorer-looking? [laughs]
Laura: Well, it’s also not a super clear shot of them. You can kind of see one of the twins and see that he’s wearing some kind of jacket, like maybe a corduroy situation, but I don’t think it’s close enough to tell, personally.
Andrew: But something else I wanted to call out: You could see a clear contrast between Vernon and, let’s say that’s Hermione’s dad, what they’re wearing, versus what the Weasleys are wearing. And in that Harry Potter “Finding Harry” documentary, they were talking about the costume design, right? And how the wizards are… they’re always going to be wearing something a little “other,” different than a Muggle would, and I think that’s illustrated here.
Laura: Agreed.
Micah: It almost looks as if Vernon and Molly are holding hands…
[Andrew gasps]
Micah: … which, again, just doesn’t sit right.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Unless we’re getting a whole different backstory than we were anticipating.
Andrew: They’ve got to expand the story somehow, and Molly and Vernon are going to have an affair. [laughs]
Micah: It is HBO.
[Amanda and Andrew laugh]
Amanda: That would be a very strange piece of fanfic.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: I’m sure it exists.
Laura: Oh, 100%.
Amanda: Rule 34.
Andrew: That’s the cold open for the episode.
[Ad break]
Andrew: Amanda, what are you most looking forward to seeing adapted from Book 1?
Amanda: Funnily enough, I just answered this question in a Leaky post the other day where I limited myself to just one thing from each book, if I wanted one thing that was missing from the films added, and it was really hard to pick just one. And for the first film, I think that the proper timeline for Harry going to King’s Cross Station. The way the movie did it, where he just jumped from his birthday to being at King’s Cross and getting on the train… I hope that we see that month at home where he has his new wizarding items and he has to ask Vernon about giving him a ride to King’s Cross, and they’re talking about getting Dudley’s tail removed, and I think it makes his meeting with the Weasleys more poignant and important when we see that he’s just been left there by the Dursleys who are laughing at him, and he’s trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do, and then he spots the Weasleys in the crowd of Muggles. I think that whole scene is going to have more gravity and emotional resonance if we get that proper timeline. What about you?
Andrew: Oh my gosh. I’m just looking forward to the expansion of the story. We saw those paparazzi photos of Flamel and Dumbledore; I can’t wait to dig deeper into the story and get what we haven’t gotten from the movies.
Amanda: Well, we’ve been told that we’ll have Peeves, so HBO has said that, and they have also, of course, said that we’ll see Dumbledore talking to his friend Nicolas Flamel about what to do about the Philosopher’s Stone. But we’ve also heard that we’ll see a representative from Hogwarts come to Hermione’s house…
Andrew: Yes!
Laura: That’s right.
Amanda: … which is something we hear about in the books, but we don’t have a scene in the books. And I’ve been speculating as to who Dumbledore is going to send, what faculty member will he send to introduce the magical world to nervous – skeptical, presumably – Muggle parents, and I keep thinking it would be hilarious if he sent Snape.
[Everyone laughs]
Amanda: I mean, he’s not going to do that, right? I mean, Dumbledore is a smart man; he’s not going to send Snape as the emissary to Muggle parents for Hogwarts, but it would just be hilarious if he did. [laughs]
Andrew: That would be hilarious. I feel like it’s got to be McGonagall, right? As Deputy Headmistress?
Amanda: Yeah, that seems the most logical choice.
Laura: That makes the most sense, yeah.
Andrew: Laura, Micah, do you want to answer this question?
Laura: Honestly, same answer. I would just be repeating what you already said.
Micah: I’m looking forward to the tasks at the end of the book being adapted appropriately, and then also making sure that Snape’s room is included, because that was something that was omitted from the film.
Amanda: I think the question in my mind is how to make that visual, because it’s a logic puzzle. I think when I was reading the book, I wrote it down on a piece of paper to keep track of the clues and figure out which one was which, and so making that work visually, I think, is the trick, and it’s fairly time-consuming to go through and read and point out which bottle goes with which clue as Hermione works it out in her head. I hope they include it, but I wonder how they’re going to make it work visually.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: The other thing – I know we’ve talked about this on a couple of episodes – but I would love for this series to open with the prophecy with Snape overhearing it, but you don’t know that it’s Snape. Maybe it’s a little bit of a shot of him from behind, and he’s cloaked, but he’s listening in at the door at the Hog’s Head as Trelawney gives the prophecy. I think that would just be such a different way to open it, as opposed to opening it, let’s say, at Privet Drive.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: All right, well, let’s move on to some comments we’ve received on YouTube. Uh-oh, buckle up. The YouTube audience is going to have some opinions.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: We normally like our safe podcast bubble. [laughs]
Micah: YouTube has opinions on things?
Laura: No way.
Andrew: The Internet’s got opinions? [laughs] So LiBe0104 said, “I can’t see how they can keep up the deep dive if Book 1 takes eight episodes. How many episodes will it take for Book 5?” We’re hoping they make these seasons longer as the series goes on, right? So I would hope maybe 12 episodes for the last few books? Per book, of course.
Laura: Yeah, I would hope so, certainly. But it can always be kind of hard to tell, because it feels like even with some larger adaptations of books… I’m thinking Game of Thrones, for example. I think, Micah, you’ll agree with me; that last season could have used a few more episodes to properly flesh out the story they were trying to tell.
Micah: Yeah, it definitely felt rushed. Yeah, I agree. I would hope that we sort of grow as the series goes along, in terms of the number of episodes we get. I don’t like the idea of splitting anything into two. I know that’s always a possibility as we get into Books 5, 6, and 7, maybe even 4, but I would… or maybe you’re looking at a two-part release for some of these, where you get, let’s say, I don’t know, six episodes at one time of the year, and maybe get six more a little bit later on. There’s a lot of possibilities here for HBO.
Andrew: Deaner2088 said,
“I like listening to you guys, but I don’t agree that this is made by fans for fans. One of the main writers was proudly bragging about how he never read the books. I’m worried it’s just going to be more of the Hollywood trash we’ve been getting fed for the better part of a decade.”
This person’s referring to Andy Greenwald, who is a writer on the show, and he said on his podcast, The Watch, that he hasn’t read all the books, so I’m not sure I would describe that as proudly bragging. It is interesting, though, that he hasn’t read all the books, at least at the time that he said that, and this was when he was writing the series.
Micah: And maybe he will by the time it’s time to work on those other books that he hasn’t read yet.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, one can hope, certainly.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Micah: But it sounds like, Amanda, based on what you were saying earlier, this is made by fans for fans, and I think you got a feel for that from the documentary as well that they put out, just with all of the different individuals that they were speaking to, and the stories that they were telling about how the Harry Potter series meant so much to them. There was generational employees where a father had worked on the original Harry Potter movies, and now their son was working on the TV show. So I think we need to let that play itself out before we pass judgment on whether or not these people are actually fans of the show.
Andrew: I agree.
Micah: Or of the books, excuse me.
Amanda: Yeah, a lot of them were describing it as a sort of “Pinch myself” moment every day, and I think they were being sincere.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. I think the goal of the documentary was to give everybody that experience that you had on set, hearing directly from the cast and crew about how excited they were and how much they care about the series. One more comment here. This is from Tiffany.
“I’m curious to see what everyone thinks about where the episode breaks are going to be. Like where will Episode 1 end? The Sorting Hat shouting out ‘Gryffindor!’? Or walking up to Hogwarts and the end scene is just a huge shot of Hogwarts exterior?”
So that’s what she said. I’m hoping that Episode 1 ends on either “You’re a wizard, Harry,” or yeah, they see Hogwarts for the first time. Maybe the boat ride into Hogwarts.
Amanda: Oh, I hope they break it into much smaller pieces. I hope that by the end of Episode 1, we’re still in the Muggle world. I mean, if we’re seeing all these scenes that they showed in the trailer of Harry being bullied at his Muggle school, they’ve got enough to be going on with. If they do start and follow the book with Privet Drive, and Harry as a baby, and then Harry growing up with the Dursleys, showing little signs of magic, being bullied, all of those letters, and going to the hut on the rock, and Hagrid, and Diagon Alley…
Andrew: That’s a good point. What am I talking about? [laughs]
Amanda: I mean, my God. They’re halfway through the book if he gets to Hogwarts at the end of Episode 1.
Micah: Trying to get to Hogwarts way too quickly.
Andrew: What’s my rush? [laughs]
Laura: I agree. I’m kind of imagining Episode 1 ending with Hagrid breaking down the door to the cabin on the little rock that Harry and the Dursleys are staying in. Maybe Episode 2 can end with them sailing across the lake to Hogwarts or something.
Andrew: Yeah, I could see that.
Micah: Yeah, I think it also depends how long the runtime is going to be for these episodes.
Laura: Sure.
Micah: I would hope we’re talking 60 minutes or so, but we know that HBO also likes to play around with runtimes, depending on what’s being adapted.
Andrew: They’re flexible. I think even though Harry might not be introduced to the wizarding world, or maybe he’s just meeting Hagrid by the end, I think in that first episode we’ll still get maybe Dumbledore and Flamel. There’s going to be some teases in terms of the storyline, where the story is going. We’re going to go into the wizarding world, I would think, in Episode 1 in some way. Maybe it’ll be the flashback to the night Voldemort killed James and Lily. I don’t know. But we’ll get some magic happening, I’m sure, in Episode 1, outside of Harry’s perspective.
Amanda: The movie is really rushed. The first movie rushed through Diagon Alley. We got a little montage of Harry buying his school supplies, and Hedwig appears, and basically he gets his wand, and then they’re eating in the Leaky Cauldron. It’s just quick, quick, quick. They could really stretch that out. He goes to all these different stores, and he’s overwhelmed with what he sees. And his first encounter with Draco is in Madam Malkin’s in the book, and they left that out of the movie and he doesn’t meet Draco until in the corridor outside the Great Hall, so they could really stretch out the Diagon Alley sequence a lot more.
What Will Be Impossible to Do Better Than the Movies?
Andrew: All right, so finally in our TV coverage this week, I wanted to ask everybody: What will be impossible to do better than the movies? The movies are ingrained in our heads; it’s going to be very difficult to unwind our thoughts and feelings about the movies when watching the TV show. For me – actually, we were just talking about this – “Yer a wizard, Harry.” I think that’s going to be impossible to do better than the movie, and part of the reason I say this is because Nick Frost, while a great actor, he just looks too similar to Hagrid, to Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid, and it’s just going to feel like a dupe to me, and not in a good way, I think. Hopefully they surprise us, but that’s one of those iconic moments. It felt like our introduction to the wizarding world as well, and I think that’s just going to be impossible to beat.
Laura: To that point, I think if they’re smart, they’re not going to try to just recreate the same exact thing that was done in the movies.
Micah: He’s going to come through the window?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: No, but just… I don’t know, thinking about the way the scene is shot, thinking about the way the line is delivered… I mean, we’ve already seen from that scene on the train, they’re changing up some of the conversations that Harry and Hagrid have, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed this up a little bit, so it didn’t have to compare. I have… maybe this will be an unpopular response to this, but I kind of question/reject the premise of the question.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Laura: I actually think there are tons of opportunities for the show to do things better than the movie did, to Amanda’s point about how rushed we were from Harry’s birthday, finding out that he’s a wizard, to him getting to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. I’d be really interested for somebody to pull the statistic of how much actual screen time we got between those events. I feel like it’s got to be under ten minutes. So I actually feel like the TV series has far more opportunities to do better than it has to fall flat against the movies.
Andrew: It definitely does, yeah.
Laura: And I think with Movie 1, I struggle a little bit to identify something that feels like they couldn’t at least rival a little bit.
Andrew: I actually have an idea for how they can shake up “You’re a wizard, Harry.” He can go, “You’re a wizard, Harry. And by the way, Vernon is having an affair with Molly, who you’re going to meet in a little while.”
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Well, again, it is HBO.
Micah: That’s why he eventually moves into Dudley’s old room, right? He’s blackmailing Vernon.
Andrew: [laughs] Micah, what’s your answer here?
Micah: So I don’t think there’s any question that the show is going to be a better page-to-screen adaptation, but I don’t know… and maybe this is just for us, because we’ve all kind of already been to Hogwarts. I don’t think it can recreate that collective “We’re seeing magic become real for the first time.” There was such a sense of wonder in Sorcerer’s Stone, and I think a lot of that is attributable to Chris Columbus and to John Williams and the music that he scored, which I think is also going to be something that I’m not sure the TV show can do better, and people are probably going to come after me for saying that with… Hans Zimmer, I’m sure, will do his best, but again, “Hedwig’s Theme” is so iconic, and it’s so connected to Harry’s story that I’m sure they’re going to have to find a way to weave that in throughout the course of the series.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Micah: But yeah, I mean, I think for me it’s just… I kind of liken it to when we went for the first time to Universal Studios in Orlando, and you come around that brick wall and you’re in Diagon Alley for the first time, and it’s just like you’re overtaken by emotion, and I don’t know that that’s going to happen with the TV show. I feel that only happens once, and for us, we’re lucky enough to have already experienced it, but for people who are watching for the first time maybe, for younger kids who have gotten into Harry Potter and maybe haven’t seen the movies yet, I do think they will experience that with this TV show, which I think is a good thing.
Amanda: It’s funny that you mention Diagon Alley, because I don’t know if you’ve seen that little video clip of me going into Diagon Alley from the Leaky Cauldron. That was real.
Andrew: On the set.
Amanda: That was just, yeah, utter shock, tears… felt like I was really there. And they were filming me, and they gave me that video clip and said, “This is what we want you to post as the promo thing,” and it was really hard for me to post that, because it was just so raw.
Andrew: Aww.
Amanda: Here I am, this sort of stiff upper lip WASP, who was just sobbing and saying, “Oh, it’s real!” And it was really hard to post that, and I looked the next day, and it had gotten, at that point, 1.3 million views.
Micah: Wow.
Amanda: [laughs] I’m not used to being on that side of the camera, and it was really affecting, and I think that’s something – based on my experience, as you can see – that they did do well. I agree with Micah that the music for the films is iconic, and that is going to be a challenge for the series to outdo, and of course, some of the casting in the films was just so spot on. That’s another big challenge. The biggest opening that the series has is to make the adaptation from the books better than the films were able to do, and of course, it’s 25 years later in terms of the development of special effects technology; there’s going to be big differences there. I think the heaviest lift for the series personally is going to be with the aesthetics, because as bad as the films were at adapting some aspects of the story and character from the books, they did the aesthetics beautifully. Hogwarts, and the tapestries, the medieval look to everything, and MinaLima, and the Marauder’s Map, and all the graphics, and all of the sort of Nazi-like propaganda in Order of the Phoenix from the Ministry. I mean, it’s just… aesthetically, the movies worked really, really well, and I think that based on what I have been able to show and say so far, that the series has absolutely risen to that challenge. And that has been my biggest fear, is how can they reach what the movies achieved aesthetically? I think that’s their biggest challenge.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Andrew: That’s a good point. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for all this extra commentary you’re adding to this discussion, having been on the set; it’s really great. And that vulnerability about posting that video, I think, is really powerful for people, because I think they saw themselves in you. It awakened something in them, like a memory of experiencing Harry Potter for the first time.
Amanda: Yes.
Andrew: All right, so that’s our TV show coverage for now.
Full-Cast Audiobook Review
Andrew: Let’s turn to the full-cast Harry Potter audiobooks. All seven Harry Potter full-cast audiobooks are available now via Audible. They were being released once a month; Deathly Hallows came out in early May. We’re going to break this chat into two parts, so we’re going to first talk about the first three books, and then the final four books, and the reason we’re going to do that is because the first three books had young voice actors, and then the final four had older voice actors for the students. So I mean, first of all, overall I am just overwhelmed by how amazing this entire series is. The details are incredible. They really build on the books. We’re finally getting a full adaptation of the books like we haven’t had before with the movies, and then the TV show is just going to go to another level, because they’re just going to be adding to the story, which is really cool. But the little details are just what really stood out to me in these audiobooks. Hearing Harry pretending to be the Bloody Baron to scare Peeves at the end of Sorcerer’s Stone; Mrs. Weasley in Chamber of Secrets saying, “Oh, hello,” with a blush to Lockhart on the cover of his own book; the Floo Powder transition, in which Harry was in the sort of Floo tunnel. Hearing that was really cool. Kit Harrington, when you hear him in Chamber of Secrets playing Lockhart, he is just consumed by the role. You would not think that was Kit Harrington, in my opinion. So those were some of my takeaways from the early books. Just the details; it’s just such a pleasure to listen to. I was listening to these when I was out on a walk, and I’m using AirPods, so they’re pretty good. There’s certain sound effects where I’m looking around because I’m thinking something’s flying at me.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: I did that last night too when I was listening. I was like, “Wait, is that in my ears or is that actually happening in the house here?”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. And just speaking of the details, too, you get more from these audiobooks because you hear people saying an agreeable statement to one another, like a “Mm” or an “Ah” or something like that, that you don’t get from the books. It just feels cinematic, if I could put it into one word.
Micah: I took a listen to Prisoner of Azkaban, a couple chapters there. I had listened to a few chapters from Philosopher’s Stone as well, but with Prisoner of Azkaban being my favorite book, I wanted to listen to a few different characters, and I chose “The Knight Bus” chapter, first and foremost because I knew that there would be a lot of additional effects going on, and I wanted to hear how they adapted the actual Knight Bus, and the bang of the bus as it’s arriving and as it’s departing… it’s just that extra level of detail that really makes it enjoyable. I think, Andrew, you had mentioned this on one of our other episodes, but David Holmes, who was a stunt double for Daniel Radcliffe, and actually recently – or within the last year or so, maybe two years – wrote a book. He was injured on the set, paralyzed during one of the stunts. He played the role of Stan Shunpike in this book, and I guess in later books as well, so it was fun to listen to him. But also the music in the very beginning of the chapter, as Harry is running away from Privet Drive, is haunting. Just, again, these little things that they add in that you wouldn’t expect. You can feel the fear building in him because he’s just blown up his aunt, he doesn’t know what’s in store for him, and yeah, he’s just really stressed and anxious in that moment. And then the other chapter was “The Boggart in the Wardrobe.” I wanted to listen to Lupin, and Iwan Rheon, who I think most people know as Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones, to take on the character like Lupin after playing a character like Ramsay, but he was really fun to listen to. I didn’t like Snape.
Andrew: Oh.
Micah: I don’t know what the rest of the panel’s thoughts are, but it’s… and I’m sorry to Riz Ahmed. Nothing against him; it’s just the voice isn’t right. And I’m not looking for Alan Rickman by no means, but it’s just the delivery wasn’t there, so I’ll be curious to hear the rest of the panel’s thoughts. And then, very quickly, Peeves was fantastic.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: When he’s doing the whole singing at Loony Lupin, just that adaptation of it was so much fun.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. You’re hearing these songs, which is really cool.
Micah: Yeah, and he’s blowing raspberries at Lupin. Yeah, so I really enjoyed those two chapters.
Andrew: I actually agree with you about Snape; he’s not totally clicking for me. But on a related note – and we can get into this more when we discuss “The Lightning-Struck Tower” – Dumbledore has grown on me. Hugh Laurie’s Dumbledore has grown on me.
Micah: Same.
Andrew: I wasn’t a fan when I started listening; I think I just had to get used to him. But yeah, he’s great. Laura? Amanda?
Laura: I was going to say, I was a fan of Hugh Laurie from the start. I feel like I’m an outlier here, and I feel like most people were very skeptical of Hugh Laurie. I think he’s been phenomenal throughout. And I’m so glad that you brought up “The Lightning-Struck Tower,” and we’ll bring it up later, because that’s one of the chapters I listened to as well, and I was like, “Yep, this is why. This chapter is exactly why Hugh Laurie was right for this role.” But looking back at the earlier books, I focused mostly on Philosopher’s Stone. I listened to “The Sorting Hat,” and then “The Potions Master,” and “The Midnight Duel,” and what I was so taken by are the environmental contributions that you were bringing up, Andrew, like little things like Harry talking about navigating this confusing new school, and you hear other students who are confused around him trying to get around. You hear somebody tripping over the invisible step on the staircase; you actually hear that happen when it’s mentioned.
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: In “The Potions Master” chapter, when Snape is basically bullying Harry in that first class, you hear Hermione in the background going, “Ooh, ooh, me, I know!” You can tell that she’s about to fall off the side of her chair trying to get his attention, and all of that stuff just makes the stories so immersing in a way that I think are really satisfying to people who always wanted that 100% faithful book-to-movie adaptation, which is never going to happen. This is the closest thing you’ll get to that, and I think that makes it so enjoyable. It really is like going to another world. It’s like being transported, honestly. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed what I’ve listened to. What about you, Amanda?
Amanda: I have mixed feelings about the full-cast audiobooks. I am not a big audiobook person in general; I listen to so many podcasts that I don’t have the patience to listen to books when I can read them. But I took out an Audible subscription exclusively for the full-cast audiobooks, and I have been listening to them, not from beginning to end, but dipping into each of them at odd moments to get kind of a sampling, and planning on doing a thorough beginning-to-end listen. And my impression so far is that I naturally gravitate towards the voices that sound like the films, because I have those in my head from the films, sort of the way the character sounds, just from having watched the films so many times, and kind of hearing those voices in my head when I read the books now, that it’s been a bit jarring when some of the characters have sounded very different. And I agree that Snape is not working for me.
Laura: I agree.
Amanda: Most of the others have grown on me, but not Snape. And some of the characters that are more blue collar in their voices, that have sort of a less educated sound, seem to be a little bit caricatured in some spots. What do you think of the narrator?
Andrew: I’ve heard some conflicting opinions, but I think she’s great. Do you not like her?
Amanda: She’s growing on me. I didn’t at first. I tend to forget they’re children’s books, and so there’s that slight condescension that you hear when someone is narrating to a child that I found a little grating at first, but after a while I forgot about it. I lost that sense of annoyance.
Andrew: Okay. Yeah, I’ve heard some people feel the same way as you. Cush Jumbo, her name is. I haven’t had any strong opinions, really, either way, but I think she’s good for a narrator.
Micah: I’ve seen her in a couple British TV shows, but I agree. I’ve liked her, for the most part, throughout.
Andrew: So looking at the final four books – and I know we’re kind of merging these two together anyway, which is fine – but it was a little jarring when you go to Goblet of Fire onward after getting used to the voices you were hearing for Harry, Ron, and Hermione, primarily. They do sound noticeably older, and at first it almost felt like they were too old, but we’re getting into some dark stuff in these audiobooks, in these stories, and so I think it ended up working, these older voices. But again, Hugh Laurie ended up growing on me. The details in Half-Blood Prince… for example, when Harry is under the Invisibility Cloak leaving Hogwarts with Dumbledore, his voice becomes muffled because he’s under the cloak compared to Dumbledore’s voice. It’s just… everything was so thoughtful. And then listening to, as I’ve said… I don’t know if I’ve said this on air yet, but with our Chapter by Chapter reread, I’ve now had the opportunity to start listening to these chapters for Chapter by Chapter, and listening to “The Lightning-Struck Tower,” I was really looking forward to the “Severus… please…” I thought Hugh Laurie did a really good job with that. The music rising as that moment is getting closer… again, cinematic. I don’t know what else to say. It’s just… the details nailed it.
Micah: For me, I listened to one chapter from Order of the Phoenix and one from Half-Blood Prince, “The Lightning-Struck Tower,” but for “The Only One He Ever Feared,” I really listened to this chapter because I wanted to hear Voldemort, and Matthew Macfadyen did not disappoint. There was a similarity to Ralph Fiennes, I will say, but it was very enjoyable to listen to this chapter, as chaotic as it is, especially once the battle starts between Voldemort and Dumbledore. The other standout in this chapter was Ruth Wilson as Bellatrix. I most remember her from His Dark Materials. I think she did have kind of that sinister sweetness to her that we came to appreciate from Helena Bonham Carter. And then there was just a lot going on in this chapter, but when we’re talking about effects, there’s this moment where Harry is screaming something at Bellatrix, and his voice echoes around the atrium of the Ministry, and it literally echoes, and I just thought, again, just a really great job with that. And then we talked a little bit about “Lightning-Struck Tower”; I listened to it because we’re doing it on our next Chapter by Chapter episode. Agree with you, Andrew. Dumbledore/Hugh Laurie has grown on me. I thought Greyback, though, in this chapter, played by an actor named Chris Jarman, is terrifying to listen to.
Laura: Yes.
Micah: If I was a little kid and I was listening to Greyback in this chapter, the way that he talks about the kids at Hogwarts and possibly snacking on Dumbledore after he’s been murdered… oh, man. It gave me chills, so kudos to him.
Laura: Totally. I listened to… I kind of moved around throughout Deathly Hallows, and I at one point landed on the point where Harry, Ron, and Hermione are infiltrating the Ministry, and so they’re under Polyjuice Potion, and at first I was really thrown off because they actually used different voice actors to portray the trio in that scene, because of course, when you’re under Polyjuice Potion canonically, you don’t keep your original voice. And so when I got… I was like, “Wait, did they age them up again?”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: But no, it was really good. And of course, I had to listen to “King’s Cross,” Harry’s reunion with Dumbledore after he sacrifices himself to Voldemort. I think that was just another sign to me that Hugh Laurie was the guy for this job. Yeah, just really, really enjoyed. And now I feel like I really need to go back and actually listen to all of them, because I haven’t done that yet, but what I have heard, to prepare for today, I really liked.
Andrew: Yeah. I think… just to start wrapping up here, I haven’t really been an audiobook listener myself. I’ve tried to listen to audiobooks; I dabble from time to time. It’s just hard to keep my attention, and that’s a me problem. But I think with these full-cast audiobooks, because they are so cinematic, they are a true pleasure to listen to, and they keep you engaged. And so I would pick these any day over the Jim Dale and Stephen Fry audiobooks, with peace and love to Jim Dale and Stephen Fry, because obviously they’ve done incredible work. But these are the type of audiobooks I think I need.
Amanda: If I can say this here, but when you mentioned Bellatrix, it reminded me… because she’s so over the top with her breathiness and her gasping and her obsequious fawning over Voldemort, with the sound effects in this book, every time someone is in the background making a noise, they’re gasping or they’re sighing, laughing, saying something in shock or just breathing, unfortunately it comes across a lot as porn sound effects.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: You can say that. That’s fine.
Amanda: So it’s inadvertently funny in a lot of really serious moments.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh, that’s funny. Okay, now I’m going to be thinking about that when I listen to these audiobooks.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Amanda: Yeah, sorry, I don’t know if…
Andrew: No, you’re good. You’re good. No, that’s fine. That’s funny.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: Well, let’s turn to some feedback here from our patrons. Laura and Micah, let’s just take turns reading these.
Laura: Sure.
Andrew: Meghan said,
“I’m a huge consumer of audiobooks. I don’t generally like full-cast readings, but Audible gave me the first book for free so I gave it a try. And HATED it the first time through. But I kept with it, and ended up really enjoying this rendition of the books. I’m on Book 4 right now, and I have to say that the actress reading Hermione really gives that character an edge that the other narrators did not… and I find myself disliking Hermione, or at least being much more aware of her character flaws than in any other reading of the books that I’ve done, and it gives me something new to think about.”
That is something cool about these, this latest adaptation. You’re getting different things out of the story.
Micah: Elizabeth said,
“I don’t typically care for audiobooks, but the Harry Potter full-cast editions are fantastic. There are a few voice actors I don’t know that I love – the older Hermione comes to mind – but easy to move past. It’s funny to me how it gives me a total different mental image than if I read the physical books. A very enjoyable new medium to enjoy the series!”
Laura: Becky says,
“I’m not usually an audio listener. I’ve been listening with my daughter. I’m enjoying them as someone who knows them inside and out, but my daughter constantly pauses to ask questions. She loves them but was really thrown off by the switch to older actors in Book 4. She thought Harry was Sirius and Ron was Oliver Wood. I think they should have waited until Book 5 to age up.”
Andrew: Hmm, okay. Rosalie said,
“Love them! The full-cast audiobooks have brought the stories to life for me in a way that even the films didn’t quite manage; as a listener it really feels like we are part of the magical world when not only the voices of every character is brought to life but also all the background noise. The whispers in the Great Hall when it is Harry’s turn to be Sorted, the cheers and roars at every Quidditch match, the chaos at the World Cup, the singing of Celestina Warbeck in the background of a serious discussion at the Burrow…”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: Lucas said,
“The change to the cast in Book 4 is a little jarring at first, and some of the sound effects in the first book seem too loud. But overall they’re incredible. I’m near the end of Book 6 and I’ll certainly never go back to the old audiobooks. The one scene in Book 2 where Harry is acting out a scene from Lockhart’s book in class is probably the best example of the strength of the format.”
Laura: And Jerri brings us home and says,
“I was skeptical at first; many full-cast recordings of books have enough music and sound effects to distract me from the story. Also, I love Stephen Fry’s reading (and Jim Dale’s is good also), but I was very caught up in the full-cast reading, almost like my first time. I am partway through the fifth book. My one complaint so far is that they should have kept the young actors for the trio through Goblet of Fire, and only moved to the more mature for Order. It was the events at the graveyard that really forced Harry and his friends to mature.”
Andrew: Ooh, good take, good take. What if they changed mid-scene in the graveyard?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Harry suddenly ages up.
Laura: Puberty just goes into hyperdrive after the graveyard. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, it’s like in The Sims video game. Suddenly they spin around and they’re a young adult.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: That’s funny.
Andrew: Listeners, if you have feedback about today’s discussions, you can email or send a voice memo to MuggleCast@gmail.com. Also, reach out via Spotify or YouTube or social DMs… whatever is convenient for you. And next week we’ll discuss Chapter 27 of Half-Blood Prince, “The Lightning-Struck Tower.” Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. It really was a pleasure having you on.
Amanda: Thank you for inviting me. This was fun, and I hope your listeners enjoy it.
Andrew: I’m sure they did. Thank you for all your insight today, and enjoy the rest of your weekend at Ilvermorny.
[Amanda laughs]
Andrew: And listeners, visit MuggleCast.com for links to our social media, our Patreon, our transcripts, our favorite episodes, and lots more. Thanks, everyone, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Amanda: And I’m Amanda from The Leaky Cauldron.
Andrew: We’ll see all your work over at Leaky. Bye, everyone.
Laura: Bye, y’all.
Amanda and Micah: Bye.