Cinematographer on the upcoming Harry Potter TV show, Adriano Goldman, has explained the difficulties of shooting the series with child actors.
HBO's reboot of the magical series is due to arrive later this year, with Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton, and Alastair Stout cast as Harry, Hermione, and Ron, respectively. They were chosen after the casting crew watched over 40,000 audition tapes.
Given that the show takes the story all the way back to their first year at Hogwarts, the stars are all very young, thought to be between 11 and 13 years old. The same can also be said for the actors portraying the rest of their classmates, as well as the extras who make the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry feel alive.
But although it makes the series authentic to both the books and movies, working with child actors has posed some issues.
Harry Potter stars were only on set for 90 minutes at a time
Due to the laws that only allow child actors to work a limited number of hours in a day, Goldman says the three stars were often on set for "an hour and a half" at a time, during which he would have to shoot six different combinations.
“You have to shoot really fast, and the faster you go, the more you compromise quality,” Goldman told Andre Pilli in an interview, which was translated by Variety. “There’s no way around it, right Obviously, we have a lot of resources, but it’s brutal. The kids’ screen time is really brutal."
"So the methodology is very specific. You practically have to pre-shoot all the scenes while they’re in class.”
As a result, "you shoot everything out of order," which makes piecing the episodes together "really complicated."
Another factor that makes filming with child actors tricky is that they are still required to attend school. To get around this, a temporary school was actually built close to the set that can hold up to 600 students at once.
The trio of stars are set to earn $660,000 each for the first season of the show, which arrives on December 25, 2026.48:Tf56, Cinem
