In a new interview with Parade.com Matthew Lewis talks about Harry Potter and saying goodbye to Neville. You can read the full interview at the previous link or in the Matthew-Lewis.com press archive.

Remembering his original audition.
“It was at the Queens Hotel in Leeds, which is where I live. I was a huge fan of the books, so I asked my mom if we could go down to the audition. We were in line for about four or five hours and we were given a raffle number. I remember I was number 463. We just had to wait and wait and eventually we got in and I had to read a paragraph from the book, which was the paragraph where Harry is talking about the dragon egg from the first film. So I read that and left and that was it. It was two months before we heard anything. We pretty much said, ‘Well, maybe next year we’ll try out for film two,’ but we got a call asking if I wanted to come meet Chris Columbus, the director, and it just moved really quickly after that. I can’t really explain how I felt. It was just amazing.”

On his Neville Longbottom transformation.
“In the earlier films, I had a fat suit on, which was not very enjoyable. I also had bits of plastic behind my ears so they would stick out, and there were false teeth as well. But as Neville got a bit older, we started slowly making him a bit cooler, not totally cool, but a bit cooler. In the last film, Neville’s got no fat suit, no false teeth, no plastic behind his ears, but I was still in hair and makeup for a long time because there’s lots of blood and cuts and bruises. I think the first time we put all the blood and stuff on, I was in hair and makeup for about two hours.”

Thanks Matthew-Lewis.com!