BEYOND THE WAND

A star of the Harry Potter film franchise tells his story.

What made Draco Malfoy such a memorable movie villain was the feeling that there was more to him than viewers were able to see. It turns out the same goes for the actor who played him. Felton fills much of his memoir with charmingly told behind-the-scenes stories of what it was like filming the eight movies in the Harry Potter series. He recalls how he brushed off Emma Watson in their first meeting and how she once slapped him in the face. “I didn’t have the cojones to tell Emma that I hadn’t meant her to thwack me in the face, or that she nearly had me in tears,” he writes. The author’s anecdotes about his co-stars, from Daniel Radcliffe to Judi Dench, are similarly sweet and self-deprecating. However, as he fondly recalls his nonchalant reaction to his early career as a child actor and how his tightknit family kept him grounded, there is foreshadowing of potential problems, particularly when the Harry Potter films concluded. “I craved an escape from the version of myself I was becoming,” he explained. “I craved the old me. I craved authenticity.” Suddenly, Felton’s studied British charm and detached cool were replaced with the frenzied discomfort of a man struggling with very real demons. To his credit, the author is as unflinchingly forthcoming during this period as he is in the rest of his life. “Part of the reason that I took the decision to write these pages,” he writes, “is the hope that by sharing my experiences, I might be able to help someone else who is struggling….I’m no longer shy of putting my hands up and saying: I’m not okay. To this day I never know which version of myself I’m going to wake up to.”

A surprisingly deep memoir from the actor who brought a memorable villain to the big screen.