New Chris Rankin interview

We now have a new interview with actor Chris Rankin, who played Percy Weasley in every Potter movie but the fourth. In this interview, Percy discusses the fifth movie, the seventh book, and more.

New contributor Jeff Renaud speaks with Percy Weasley himself, British actor Chris Rankin, about the Order of the Phoenix movie and Book 7, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.


JR: When did you originally land the role of Percy Weasley?



CR: It was in 2000, seven years ago.



JR: Can you believe it was that long ago?



CR: No. I was just 16 at the time. But it seems like yesterday. I was at home one evening watching the TV. I put the TV early on to watch a show called Neighbours, which is awful. It's an awful programme but I kind of like it in its cheesiness. And I caught the last five minutes of programme that's on the BBC called Newsround, which is a news programme for 12- to 14-year-olds, I guess. And the last piece of news for the programme was that they were finally making a movie for Harry Potter in September and they are looking for people to act and to apply because they don't want actor kids; they want to find new people, who have not necessarily acted before. And I thought why not? I think I had read two or three books at that time.



JR: So you knew of Harry Potter and were reading the books?



CR: Yes, I was a Harry Potter fan. My mum is an English teacher and she came back from school one day and said, "You have got to read this." And I was kind of hooked from the start. So I applied and they had said at the end of the report that if you haven't heard anything in a few weeks, basically tough luck because so many people are going to apply and they want to find a cast as soon as they can. So if you haven't heard anything in two weeks, you haven't got a chance, basically. And two weeks came and went and I heard nothing so I kind of forgot about it. I had my exams to do at the end of high school because it was end of May, beginning of June so I think I was studying for them. And I turned up from holidays in August and I had a voice mail saying this is somebody from David Heyman's production office and they want to see me for the role of Percy, which I had applied for. I wrote this cheesy letter saying I am too old for Harry and Ron and I can't really play Hermione and I am prefect at school, so I might kind of qualify for Percy. And then we rang them back and they faxed over a couple pages of script and said, "Learn these over the next one or two days."



JR: And had you done any acting at all previously, school productions or anything?



CR: I had been in all the school productions since I was 11. I kind of had the acting bug. I was quite shy when I started high school but I quickly discovered by acting, it got me over my shyness. It made me do something that wasn't really me. I think a lot of actors say that. It is quite easy to be confident when you are not being yourself, when you are playing another character or whatever. And so I had done a lot of stuff at school. I had three lead roles that year in school shows. I played Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar, and I had done a lot of musicals.



So, I went to the audition two days after that and met Janet Hirshenson, who was the casting director for America, and she said, "Thank you very much and what are you doing in two days' time? Do you want to come and meet Chris Columbus and producers and everyone at the studio?"



And I said, "Yes." (laughs) So I did that and I did the same audition again for them and then Chris Columbus did a bit of improvisation to kind of test me, I guess, and Janet rang me the next day, or the day after I think, and my mum answered the phone and said, "It's for you," and I picked up the phone and Janet said, "I am speaking to Percy Weasley?"



And I started about a week later. It was insane. When it happened, it happened really quickly. And the next week, I got into costume and I was in a read-through all of a sudden, we were laughing really.



JR: Is it difficult playing Percy, who, by end of Order of the Phoenix, has been basically ostracized by the Weasley family? And secondly, are you personally hoping Percy gets his head back on right in Deathly Hallows?



CR: I actually hope that he doesn't. I think quite a lot of actors will agree with this that playing bad characters is much more enjoyable than playing the goodies. You look at Ralph Fiennes and how well he plays Voldemort. There is so much meat and so much depth to his character, certainly more with villains than there is with the good guys. The good guys just get to save the day and get the girl, but the baddies, I just love it.



We have this thing in England called Pantomime, which is a children's shows and they are always done at Christmas. And it's usually based on fairy tales and I have done five or six of them now and I always play the villain in those. I guess knowing where that's where you have been going for a long while. You have kind of been seeing it since the Goblet of Fire when the book came out for that. Percy wasn't possibly everything that he should be and he's starting to show signs of not quite being with Harry.



So having a head's up on that was fun because the fourth book came out the summer of 2000, I think, so you have known Percy is going bad right from the beginning of the filming, literally. So it's been nice, having that in mind kind of hinted at through everything. Certainly, in Chamber of Secrets, when there's a few moments when you think Percy might be the one opening the chamber when he is lurking in the dungeon and gets caught by Harry and Ron with the Polyjuice and all that. Knowing that he is not quite as goodie-goodie as you thought he might be. I mean he is a goodie, but he's power-hungry, I think.



JR: What is your relationship with the other actors on set? Does the fact Percy is on the outs with the Weasleys affect you at all?



CR: Mostly, it's a very happy bunch on set. I think we all say this and it's cheesy, but we've been saying it for years: it's like a very large family. We have all been doing it for such a long time now that most of us have learned together. A lot of us had never professionally acted before. We started at the same point and have worked up from there.



The only time it started to get weird to me was on Prisoner of Azkaban because I am slightly older than most of the kids and quite a bit younger than most of the adults so I was in that mid-way section. For the first two films, Sean Biggerstaff (Oliver Wood) was the same age as me and the twins, so we kind of hung out together but on the third film Sean had gone and everyone else was in exams and in schooling and I'd left school by then and so I was old enough to go hanging out with the famous actors (laughs), because you don't, you don't hang out with Alan Rickman, do you? But it didn't affect my enjoyment of the job at all. It just meant that when everyone was in school, I just sat in the dressing room or the trailer watching DVDs. But on set, the atmosphere is great. Everyone is doing the same thing.



JR: You don't get a preview copy of the seventh book, do you?

CR: No, I think the only person to have read it, apart from all of Jo's team of editors and all that, is perhaps Stephen Fry and Jim Dale, who read the audiobooks. They are probably the only other two who know what happens. So no, we don't get any clues at all. But we are always trying.



JR: Have you met J.K. Rowling before?



CR: Yes, three or four times.



JR: And are people always trying to find out some hints?



CR: Well some people have more success with that than others. I remember when the fifth book came out around the time of the second premiere, I guess, I had a word with her about Percy and the fact that I was getting hate mail from avid fans of the book. For some people, they are so into it, they think I actually am Percy. I get Percy's hate mail! They say, "I can't believe you have disowned your family." It's not my fault! (screams) And she said in the sixth book he does kind of redeem himself. And that's all she would tell me. And he did come home on Christmas Day but he brought the Minister of Magic with him so it was not the redemption we were hoping for.



JR: So will you line up with the rest of us when the seventh book comes out?



CR: Oh yes, I will.



JR: And will you race through it so it does the ending is not spoiled by media reports?



CR: The last time, when the sixth one came out, the BBC asked me to write a review for it. It came out on Saturday and they wanted it for the Monday. So I read the book in 13 hours. I stayed up all night, read it, took notes, put pages turned over, and wrote this thing. And I went out in the middle of the afternoon and fortunately I had finished it by then because I went out and already people were wearing T-shirts that said, "Dumbledore dies on page 596 [and I just saved you £16]."



It's cruel but yes, I'll be there at midnight at Borders or wherever and getting my copy and not sleeping for three days.



JR: Was that unexpected, being asked to write for BBC?



CR: I have quite a good relationship with the BBC actually. Lizo Mzimba, who presents Newsround and who as you know, has quite an involvement with the Harry Potter world, I have been mates with Lizo for quite a while now. Our local BBC station in Norwich, I have had a very good relationship with them for years. And I'm not sure why they asked me! Chris will do it.



JR: Would you like to do some more writing?



CR: It's something I'd be open to doing. Like I said, I like to do things that I haven't done before. There's something else that might be happening with the BBC, as well on BBC 1. Like I said, they have been very good to me over the last six or seven years.



JR: Is there anything else that you are working on?



CR: Yeah, some bits and bites. I've just gotten a new agent. He's been very proactive over here and getting things happening. There are a few things that aren't confirmed yet. There's a film possibly happening over the summer which is completely different from Harry Potter and will be a lot of fun. And this thing with the BBC that might be happening but like I said, nothing has been signed. Nothing is happening until the papers are signed.



So yeah, this potential film and this thing with the Beeb and I've got another pantomime that I am definitely doing this Christmas, a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves just outside London. Alarmingly, the part is called Percy. And I can't think why that would be? It's getting busier now. When Goblet of Fire was happening, and I didn't do that one, because I don't know what happened there but there wasn't much for Percy. I had a couple of years of not doing very much and then last year was insanely busy because I was doing Order of the Phoenix and I was on tour with a production so I was doing the film during the day and the theatre at night. Then go back to the hotel, and do filming all day and the theatre at night, so that was insane. I did this thing, this war programme for TV and that was filming in Spain for the week so that was nice. And then I did a couple of conventions and then it was Pantomime and then I went to America and now we are here so, you know, it's getting busier now.



JR: And are you signed on for the sixth and seventh movies, as well?



CR: If they want me, yes. Nothing confirmed but if they offer, I will say yes. It really depends on the script. They option us. This is the contract, if we need you. And obviously, that's always depending on the script.



If Percy turns out to be Lord Voldemort or something, yeah if they want me, I'll do it. It would be great fun.



JR: Do you have any guesses for Book 7?



CR: This is where fans want to kill me for things I say. I want Harry and Ginny to get back together. I think that really has to happen. I don't know. I am very unsure of who is going to die. I wouldn't put it past her to kill Harry off. I don't think she will, but it wouldn't surprise me if she did because she has said all these things about this being definitely the last Harry Potter book - ever. She mentioned that after a few years she might do one of those mystical creatures type book kind of things. There certainly won't be any more Harry Potter books.



JR: But couldn't she bring Harry back? People always come back from the dead.



CR: Well Dumbledore is definitely dead. I know she said that. A couple of years ago, I was in Salem for the Halloween parade and I did one of the conventions that same weekend and I did a panel and this woman was convinced, utterly convinced that Dumbledore wasn't dead and actually when he had gone over the edge of the tower, and he was an Animagus and he turned himself into a beetle and had flown down to the ground and had a dragon's blood pellet in his mouth, so he got the trickle of blood and he was actually alive and it was all a big hoax. It was completely demented.



JR: But it's nice, in a way, that people put that much thought into it.



CR: I know. I don't know what I'd like to see. Obviously, I'd like to see something major for Percy.



JR: I am assuming you would like to see Percy back together with his family?



CR: No, I wouldn't, actually. I'd like to see something awful happen to him - a horrible death.



JR: You would like him to be Voldemort, wouldn't you?



CR: Yes! But if that doesn't happen, I would be quite happy to accidentally end up being a Death Eater and get attacked and killed and have some tragic death scene where he admits he's really, really sorry and then dies in the arms of his mother.



I would like to see the book be all that we expect it to be. I mean, the poor woman must be quite terrified because there is so much, more than any of the other books ever, there has been so much resting on this one remaining book.



JR: You are still a relatively young actor. Has participating in the Potter movies hurt your career in any way or has it been all good?



CR: I am 23 years old and of course, it's been an amazing thing. When you have Harry Potter on your resume, that's pretty good. It's not a car insurance advert or something, it's a good starting block really. I have never had any professional training. I have been full-time acting since I was 16. And I haven't stopped since. But I am working with the best actors in the U.K., some of the best actors in the world, people like Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman and all that. It's really best training I could ever have. It has caused a few hurdles over the years, where I have ended up doing some things purely because of Harry Potter and kind of getting typecast into that but it's still work at the end of the day. It's only recently that I signed up with Stacy Castro Media and I just spent five weeks over in L.A. It was interesting to go and see what America has. And it's been proving quite successful so far.



JR: Would you like to do more genre/fantasy work or would you prefer a comedy or a drama? Perhaps a role as a non-magical person?



CR: I love doing Harry Potter and I really enjoyed Lord of the Rings and I haven't seen Eragon but I want to and there's the Philip Pullman stuff, all those kinds of things I really enjoy but I feel at the moment, I have kind of done that. I have been doing that for six or seven years now. And I want to try doing something else for a while and see how that suits me.



I spent the last year touring the U.K. in a theatre production of Wuthering Heights. It's a classic drama, costume drama period piece. Which is completely different then anything I have ever done before and last Autumn, I did a TV documentary drama about people who won the Victoria Cross medal for bravery during the Crimean War in 1856. That was something I hadn't done with guns and swords and getting shot and doing complete action stuff. I try to vary what I do as much as possible because it keeps your brain working. If I could do Potter full-time, I'd be very happy but when I'm not doing Potter, I like doing things that aren't Potter. It's quite important to me to get out and try another character.



JR: That's great, Chris. Thanks for doing this. I know it's late there. Have a great evening. And as you wish, I hope Percy enjoys a horrible death in Deathly Hallows.



CR: Thank you, Jeff. I am sure you meant that in the nicest possible way.



For more on Chris, please visit his website at http://www.chrisrankin.com/



Jeff Renaud is a freelance writer. His words have appeared in Geek Monthly, Starlog, Cult Times, Comics International and on the popular comic book website www.comicbookresources.com

Posted by Ciaran on May 8th | 58 Comments