Harry Potter Star Drops Bombshell About 'One Of The Worst Days' On Deathly Hallows Set
The story pulls back the curtain on just how brutal things got behind the scenes of the blockbuster finale, and fans are already buzzing about the confession.
Domhnall Gleeson says his very first day on Deathly Hallows Part 1 was a full-on nightmare: supposed to speak English, came out Australian. Not ideal when your character is a Weasley.
How a Weasley almost turned Aussie
Gleeson, who joined the series late as Bill Weasley (the eldest Weasley sibling), only pops up in the seventh and eighth movies. On Late Night With Seth Meyers, he admitted that on day one of Part 1, he tried to lock into an English accent and, for some reason, his brain went straight to Australia. And stayed there. He just could not shake it.
The day from hell, play-by-play
First take, about 300 people on set, and director David Yates calls cut. Long pause. Yates walks over and, as Gleeson tells it, politely points out that Bill Weasley has suddenly become Australian. Can he fix it? In that moment, apparently not. Gleeson says he essentially had to admit it was what his mouth wanted to do that day. He called the whole thing shocking, and it clearly stuck with him.
'It was one of the worst days of my life.'
Meyers and Gleeson laughed about the obvious: you cannot just decide a Weasley grew up in Sydney. The good news is things settled down after that first day, and yes, he delivered what he needed to deliver as Bill across both Deathly Hallows films.
Where he left it
Gleeson also joked that he hopes his American accent in his current project, The Paper, fares better, tossing it back to the audience with a you tell me energy. For what it is worth, Deathly Hallows Part 1 still turned out to be one of the strongest entries in the series, accent detour and all.