Cameron Diaz’s unusual influence on ‘Harry Potter’
Have you ever watched the Harry Potter films and wondered who Daniel Radcliffe imagined being on the end of his broomstick? Ever been fully ensconced in the battle between good and evil and then considered who Tom Felton was imagining when playing with his wand? Well, now throw Cameron Diaz into that double-entendre-laden chaos and you won’t be far wrong.
That’s because according to some passages in Felton’s book Beyond the wand there was all manner of teenage tomfoolery going on while filming the first few films, especially when it came to Quidditch scenes, the Hogwarts sport invented by JK Rowling that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, given all the points scored are rendered useless if someone just grabs the golden snitch in the first few seconds.
Felton revealed that he and Radcliffe would have different techniques in order to properly follow direction during the complex flying scenes, given that most of the footage was added in later using CGI. Although he did say that “The approach was that if a piece of magic or any kind of special effect could be achieved practically, that was the best way to do it.”
The directors of the films then had to wrangle teen actors into looking in the right direction, which Felton said was achieved by hanging tennis balls on the end of a long pole, before they were told what they needed to focus on was either a dragon or a ‘Bludger’, which is an iron ball used in Quidditch.
But often there would be multiple tennis balls, so Felton said other things were used for the actors to concentrate on, usually photos. Felton explained: “We chose pictures of something or somebody close to our hearts. Daniel Radcliffe had a picture of a particularly beautiful Cameron Diaz.”
Which doesn’t sound too unusual for a young lad of 12 or 13, let’s be honest, although more questions could probably be asked as to why Felton himself “chose a picture of an even more beautiful carp.”
Whatever floats your boat, I suppose. Radcliffe’s candle for Diaz, meanwhile, continued to burn well into adulthood and long after the Potter movies had finished filming, as he told a UK radio station a couple of years ago about his celebrity crushes, saying: “Cameron Diaz is still very high on the list, Drew Barrymore is there.”
Felton, meanwhile, is surprisingly not done with the Wizarding World, despite it being fourteen years since the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two, marking the end of the series.
That’s because he’s signed on to slip Draco Malfoy’s robes back on for a limited time in the Broadway production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. He’ll be portraying the character once more in New York between the end of this month and the middle of May next year, and expressed surprise at the development because he didn’t think he’d ever be going blonde again to take on Potter.
As for Cameron Diaz, the object of Radcliffe’s adolescent admiration is currently filming an action comedy for Netflix called Bad Day and has signed on to appear opposite Benicio del Toro in a film called Reenactment.
Radcliffe himself is also heading back to Broadway after scooping a Tony award for his last effort; he’s going to do a one-man show called Every Brilliant Thing. In the meantime, enjoy him pretending to play Quidditch while actually staring at Cameron Diaz below.
