Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, tells Metro about how Draco would match up
to other movie villains, and why he’d play Draco again.
What’s the best thing about playing someone evil?
It’s so nice to play
someone so well written, and someone that’s so different from Tom.
Draco’s not an evil child at all, quite a soft sweetheart really. He’s
a victim of circumstances, and a victim of terrible parenting, he was
the most evil when he was young, as he’s grown older, and in this film,
he’s grown a conscience for the first time.
Did you bring any friends on set, for lunch?
It was the most bizarre
lunch hall in the world, you had a two-foot goblin next to an
85-year-old wizard with a cape around his beard to stop him spilling
soup on it. But my friends couldn’t have been less interested, I bored
them for hours about being on set. But if they took me to their offices
I think I’d be bored too.
How do you think Draco would match up to other movie superheroes?
Well,
we do have the great advantage of the wand, we don’t have to get to
within 20 metres of each other. I like to think that with that you
can’t really fail, a bit of abracadabra and bam, the job’s a good ‘un.
With the wand, they’d never get that close, but if they did I’m sure
he’d get the shit kicked out of him. Draco’s far from the most
courageous boy in the book, and would probably run away crying before
they had the chance to fire a first blow.
How would he do against Twilight’s Edward and Jacob?
Not very well,
take the wand out, there’s no chance, he’s running away crying.
How about the kids from Narnia?
They’re pretty tame, they’ve got no
hope, it wouldn’t even go to physical, it would be merely verbal; he
would spit out a few distasteful remarks and they’d run off back into
the wardrobe.
And Jack Sparrow?
The drunken gay captain? He’s quite a slippery one,
that Captain Jack, he would probably get into a tongue-twisting kind of
event where Draco’s outsmarted and probably marooned on an island. I
see Draco being outsmarted quite quickly.
Finally, would Draco have a chance against the Dark Knight?
Wow, not a
hope in hell, that guy’s at another level. Draco would be petrified at
the thought.
You play a villain again in Rise of the Apes, would you like to
play more bad guys?
I can’t reveal too much, but it’s a fairly
unpleasant role again. I work at a primate facility that my dad owns,
and needless to say, I don’t look after our residents very well. It’s a
delightful role, very different role from Draco. I’d be happy playing a
Bond villain, although being Bond would be fine as well. I am an
admirer of villains, especially working with so many great ones, Alan (Alan Rickman, who plays Snape)
and Raf (Ralph Fiennes, who plays Voldemort), it’s taken me seven years to pluck up the courage to talk to them,
even as charming and lovely as they are.
Have you ever had a bad reaction from Harry Potter fans?
Luckily, I’ve
been booed and hissed but nobody has tried to knock my lights out. We
get a lot of youngsters come down to the set, and needless to say,
they’re not all as excited about meeting me as they are Daniel (Daniel Radcliffe), and
rather reluctant to shake my hand. The more I try to sway them, the
more creepy it is. I don’t have a huge fanbase with the under-sevens,
but I’ll take it as a compliment.
Would you work on another Harry Potter if J.K. Rowling wrote another
book?
You can’t see a character through 10 years and then give up!
We’ve actually been saying that in 25 years there’ll be remake and I’ll
get to play Lucius, that’s my pension right there.
Did you take anything from the set?
I have a silver Salazar Slytherin ring, it’s on my mantlepiece.
