In a new interview with the NZ Herald News a bunch of the cast talk about filming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Matthew Lewis, Daniel Radcliffe, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Felton and David Heyman were interviewed.

“We were all aware that this great juggernaut was reaching the end of its journey, so we wanted to give it and the characters the proper send-off they deserved,” says producer David Heyman, describing the rationale for the split.

“The only way to do that and preserve the integrity of the work was, we felt, to have two parts because Deathly Hallows is so rich, the story so dense and there’s so much that is resolved.”

Daniel Radcliffe had campaigned from the start to break the story into two movies. Unlike the earlier books, which had secondary plot lines that could be omitted, Deathly Hallows had few details to drop, Radcliffe says.

“It’s just the three of them on the road, and that’s what you’re focusing on, that’s where everything happens. So there’s very little you can actually cut without changing the story,” he says.

“There was no way you could do justice to the book and really capture the story in one film, unless you made that film six hours [long].

“And while I know there are some Potter fans who would be quite happy to have a six-hour Harry Potter film, we do want to make films not just for the huge fans of the books, but also for the other people, regular cinema-goers, who perhaps haven’t read them. So it was essential to make it palatable for sort of everyone, while also remaining true to the book, and to do that, you have to make it into two films.”

Similarly, to ensure cinematic continuity, director David Yates – who previously helmed Half-Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix – was re-enlisted for both parts of Deathly Hallows. That decision became a life-saver during filming, says Matt Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom.

“Not only was it a really long shoot, it was also really tricky because we didn’t film them back to back,” he reveals. “We shot them simultaneously, like Lord of the Rings, so it got really confusing. If we didn’t have such a good crew and David directing us, it could have got completely out of control because the schedule for the last year was crazy. I literally don’t know what film each scene was in, or how they fit together. But we all just buckled down because it’s the last one and we wanted to make it as memorable and epic as possible.”

Thanks Matthew-Lewis.com!