The “heartbreaking” TV show Robbie Coltrane loved
The celebrated Harry Potter franchise is known for boasting performances from some of the most iconic British actors of all time, including Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon and Gary Oldman, among many others. One of the stars who walked away from the franchise with a renewed fanbase was the late Robbie Coltrane, who played the loveable giant Hagrid in the wizarding world created by J. K. Rowling.
Having enjoyed a long and healthy career long before he stepped foot in Hogwarts, Coltrane first appeared on the screen in the late 1970s, making his debut in the influential Play for Today series, starring in the episode ‘Waterloo Sunset’, directed by Richard Eyre. Later, he claimed minor roles in the beloved fantasy flick Flash Gordon, as well as the comedy series The Young Ones, where he rubbed shoulders with Rik Mayall.
He later raised his profile with appearances in Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio, Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, and the James Bond flick Goldeneye before he took to the fantasy world of Harry Potter. Announcing himself on the world stage of cinema, Coltrane soon drew the eyes of Kelsey Grammer, who cast the actor in the final episode of the comedy series Frasier in 2004.
Recalling his experience on the show in an interview with BlackFilm from 2004, Coltrane stated: “That was such fun. It would have been nice to have more time but I couldn’t do it because of this [Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban]. ‘It’s the very last one, you must and come and do something’ and I was like, ‘What would I do?’ and they were like, ‘I don’t know, just come over.’ So we kind of made it up”.
The scene saw Coltrane appear alongside fellow British actor Richard E. Grant as the comedic relatives of Jane Leeve’s character Daphne Moon. Playing off on the unintelligible nature of the British accent in the opinion of Americans, the scene shows Coltrane playing a manic Yorkshireman.
“We made it up,” the actor recalled, “It’s a Yorkshire dialect and it had to sound a lot worse and it had to sound like an American trying to speak it. Every third word you had to throw in a word that people would recognize cause it isn’t funny. It’s someone talking rubbish. It’s a great show. God, I love that show. It’s heartbreaking that it finished. It’s all very emotional. 11 years. Talk about family. The last line was even ‘Goodnight, Seattle’. I wasn’t even in it and I got choked up”.
Take a look at a grainy clip of Coltrane and Richard E. Grant in action in Fraiser below.
