

They announced a film, and I was with a kids’ performing actors’ agency, and I’d done various television stuff in the UK from age 5. Matthew Lewis: Well, I was 11 years old, and I’d just read the first four books. Club: What was your original audition process like?

Club about the fat suit, making a decision at age 11 that determined the next decade of his career, and why no one in his hometown cares about his celebrity. In the final movie, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, he finally comes into his own as a hero, shedding the fake teeth and prosthetic ear-extenders he’s been stuck in since the beginning, and the fat suit he’s had to wear since movie No. Early on, his character was a comic-relief bumbler who nonetheless earned respect by standing up to his friends in later movies, he proved unskilled at magic, but determined to stand up for himself. Cast at the same time as child actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Tom Felton, among others, he grew up onscreen alongside them, appearing in all eight Potter movies. But since 2001, he’s mostly been visible as Neville Longbottom, the Potter series’ chubby, hapless kid turned sword-wielding hero. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, he already had half a dozen film and TV credits to his name. When Matthew Lewis auditioned for a role in the first film adaptation of J.K.
