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‘Harry Potter’ Stars Share Their Experience Working With Dame Maggie Smith

Harry Potter Stars Share Their Experience Working With Dame Maggie Smith

During LeakyCon 2018 in Dallas, Texas, Devon Murray (Seamus Finnigan), Luke Youngblood (Lee Jordan), and Ellie Darcey-Alden (Lily Potter) took the stage to talk about their experience working on Harry Potter as a young actor. All three were thrilled to be a part of the series and were in awe of some of their older cast mates, none more so than Dame Maggie Smith, who played Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration professor and head of Gryffindor.

Darcey-Alden shared one scene with Smith, which involved her character, Lily, being sorted into a Hogwarts house. Before filming began, Darcey-Alden said she was instructed not to speak to Smith. This, of course, caused the young actress to panic a bit because she didn’t want to do anything wrong. Murray added that he was also told not to speak to Smith. During a break in filming, however, Smith approached Darcey-Alden and told her that her hair is beautiful.

“Inside I was shaking. Then she comes up to me and she goes, ‘Your hair is beautiful.’ And I’m like, ‘Ah! I don’t know what to say. I was told not to say anything, but….’ ‘Thanks.’ And then she just stood there and started having a conversation with me on how my day was, if I enjoyed filming…. And I didn’t really know what to say. I didn’t want to be rude by not saying anything to her, but then I didn’t want to be rude by saying anything to her. So I was really conflicted. But she was such a nice person. And it was a very warm welcome to the whole Harry Potter set thing.”

Murray agreed that Smith is the nicest lady he has ever met. He then told the story of their first long interaction together. Both of their flights had been delayed, so they bonded in the hotel lobby during the 5 to 6 hour wait. Murray then said that his mother and Smith are really good friends now and are always asking for each other. Though Smith developed a soft spot for Murray after that, she wouldn’t allow him to get away with anything on set. “The book was thrown at me,” Murray said. “Everyone else, she let it flow.”

Youngblood laughed at the stories, saying no one ever told him he couldn’t talk to Smith. Their most prominent scene together is during the Quidditch matches as Lee Jordan is the commentator and sat in the teacher’s box.

“When I sat in the stands with her, I was chatting up a storm. I said, ‘You’ve been doing this for a while, yeah?’ We had a great time.”

'Harry Potter' Stars Share Their Experience Working With Dame Maggie Smith
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone/Warner Bros.