New photos of Rupert Grint in Wild Target have surfaced online and you can see them here courtesy of rupert-grint.us!

Wild Target will be released on April 23rd along with Cherrybomb!

In an interview with The Tatler, which I posted about last week, Clemence Posey confirms that Emma Thompson returned to reprise her role as Professor Trelawney in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!  You can see scans of the interview by going here!

She doesn’t know, she says, how her co-stars, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, are coping with their stellar existences – ‘We’ve never discussed it.’ But in Paris, she adds, ‘the French are too snob’ to admit to recognizing anyone. ‘And I’m proud of that!’ So proud that when Emma Thompson – a heroine of hers – was in make up for Harry Potter the other day and she felt a goosepimply ‘Aaah!’, she ‘didn’t say anything. Because I’m French! I’m not going to admit it.’

Thanks Clémence-Poesy.org! All I have to say is YES! I was hoping she could squeeze in a few days of filming!

In another new interview Rhys Ifans, who plays Xeno Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, spoke about what it means to him to get a role in the franchise.

Cinematical: Speaking of Harry Potter, was that a weird world to step into?
Rhys Ifans: No, it wasn’t. It was a rite of passage, in a way. There is no way in English culture that I would be rewarded for my endeavors. I am a bad boy from beginning to end. So, as an actor, being in Harry Potter, you get your stripes. As shallow as it sounds…

That doesn’t really sound shallow at all.
It is a beautiful … I’m really touched. I was really touched to participate in a … what is a trilogy six times?

I don’t even know if there is a word for it.
No. Whatever. I am just happy to have been a participant in the telling of that story. I am really touched. Harry Potter is an amazing brand. I am, you know, really touched. It is like getting a f**king medal. And I am a renegade. It is good. This is not an egotistical thing, but it is like, I guess, Johnny Rotten gets to f**k Lady Di in the tunnel, before she dies.

John Hurt, who plays Ollivander in the Harry Potter films, was recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement award at an international film festival.

The 70-year-old actor, who has starred in films such as Alien, The Elephant Man and Midnight Express, was given the Bradford International Film Festival (BIFF) accolade for work that has spanned over six decades. Fans gathered to watch the ceremony at the city’s National Media Museum with BIFF artistic director Tony Earnshaw. The presentation was followed by a screening of The Elephant Man.

Mr Earnshaw said: “John Hurt has been leading man, supporting player and scene-stealer. Always he has breathed vivid life into believable, plausible and credible characters, often against a backdrop of fancy, whimsy or plain bafflement. He appears in the final films in the Harry Potter franchise, thus enchanting an entirely new generation of admirers. It’s what going to the cinema is all about.”

This is Local London is reporting that a fire broke out on the set of Deathly Hallows last night, luckily no one was injured.

Watford firefighters were called to an outdoor film set at about 9pm to deal with a blaze in a mocked up castle.

Watch commander Tony Smith said: “I think they are filming some stunts for the last scene. There is a big battle scene involving a lot of pyrotechnics and explosions. There is a mocked up castle made of timber, steel and plastic – somehow it caught alight. By the time we got there the on-site fire crew had it pretty well under control – they did a good job. We just helped damp it down and inspected the area. I didn’t see any cast – but there were about 100 crew, who were all evacuated to a marshalling are. They didn’t seem too concerned. It’s hard to say how much damage was caused, because some of it may have been planned as part of the filming. Perhaps they got much better footage than they expected.”

Thanks UHP!

ComingSoon has added some more information about the Deathly Hallows preview that was shown at ShoWest; read more here & here. Spoilers:

The footage opened with Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort in a clearing followed closely by his Death Eaters. Being unfinished footage, Fiennes still had dots on his face and there were placement dots for later FX, but soon, they meet up with Harry Potter and Voldemort snarls, “Harry Potter… Come to die.”

That sets up the footage which makes it clear that the last two movies are going to be about the final showdown between the two long-time nemeses, and much of what we saw involved Voldemort plotting with his Death Eaters how he was going to capture Harry Potter and how he wants to be the one to kill him when they do.

The Ministry of Magic is clearly falling apart and they seem to be after our heroes as well, but as someone who hasn’t read the book, it wasn’t clear whether the Ministry were working with Voldemort to catch Harry or whether they had their own agenda. One scene shows multiple Harry Potters, and we see a bit of Bill Nighy as Rufus Scrimgeour, looking very fierce, as well as quite a lot of Helena Bonham Carter’s Bellatrix Lestrange acting suitably crazy as she interacts with the kids after they’ve been captured and are being brought to the Death Eaters safe house.

There was some footage of the trio running through the Forbidden Forest being chased by something, a quick anamatic of the giants smashing up some building (Hogwarts?) with their clubs, and footage of the kids being chased by a dragon. Another unfinished scene showed Hagrid on a flying motorbike that was rocketing through the side alongside what looked like Hermione and other Hogwarts denizens on broomsticks, as well as others riding Thestrals (those flying horses), seemingly being chased by a flying Voldemort or another Death Eater. With all of this happening, the friendship is also having trouble withstanding all of the strain, and in one scene, we see Harry and Ron really going at it, even more than we’ve seen them arguing in the past.

The footage ended with what might be the final confrontation with Voldemort as he asks Harry, “Why do you still live?” to which he gets the response, “Because I have something to live for.”