Matthew Lewis Quotes

Alan Rickman told me to do a play, so I did. Because when Alan Rickman tells you do something, you go and do it.

I wasn't attractive when I was growing up, and I don't think I am now.

I love making people laugh, and to be able to be that humorous character was great. And I actually was very similar to Neville Longbottom. I was very shy and chubby-cheeked. I wasn't bullied at school, but I wasn't particularly outgoing. We were similar. And so I loved playing him.

There's not many people on the face of the earth that don't know Harry Potter is Daniel Radcliffe. He's had that since he was eleven years old, yet he hasn't changed since the day I met him.

I'm very comfortable being at home and keeping my head down, really. It's nice being invited to night clubs and stuff, which is nice once in a while, but I prefer to kind of keep to myself.

As long as I'm acting and doing what I love, I'll be happy.

The fame stuff, the kind words from websites and things, are very flattering and lovely, but I just wanna act.

I wasn't bullied or anything at school, but I was quite shy and didn't speak up too much in class.

I was never really bullied at school. I was pretty confident in terms of school work and teachers and I've never shyed away from much but a lot of people have come up to me and said that they were bullied at school and my portrayal of Neville has influenced them a lot in their lives and helped them out.

You have to prepare for the unexpected. You have to be able to react to things that don't necessarily happen every night, or aren't supposed to happen every night. And you have to react to it in character.

I'm not a big fan of people knowing too much about me.

What I've found is that stage is very much a foundation of acting. It's where it all began and you're working with that repetition.

Theater was such a different school of acting. But it really is a foundation of everything. It's where it all started! And I feel like I learned so much.

I must confess I don't own Harry Potter DVDs. My parents do. They have them all. And they like watching them. They've got all their home videos done in HD quality! They love it. But I struggle very much. I'm very self-conscious as an actor, anyway. I don't like watching my own performances, even in this recent one.

Approaching a comedy character is fun because you get to sit down with the director and ask, "What makes you laugh?" Then you end up bouncing ideas off each other.

Theater gave me the confidence to believe I could play something else, 'cause it was so difficult. It was me out of my comfort zone. It gave me the confidence to believe that I could push myself and challenge myself and still succeed. Yeah. I'm very, very glad I did it. And I'm very keen, now, to take what I learned there into more television and film.

I had a screen test and an audition for the role of Neville Longbottom. It wasn't a job at that point. It was just something I enjoyed doing. And it's hard to remember back then, really, that much. But I just remember loving it.

I did enjoy theater. I actually do prefer making films and television, but it was a learning experience for me, because I got into television at 5 and film at 11, and theater was something I completely bypassed.

Michael Gambon telling filthy jokes and Alan Rickman talking about scrambled eggs, just really normal things, and yet they're these amazingly, superb, famous actors. I feel so privileged to have been around them on the set of Harry Potter.

My parents are proud of me being an actor.

The thing that inspires me about Daniel Radcliffe and the thing that I admire the most about him is that he's had a level of fame thrust upon him that's relatively unheard of.

I love playing football. I started playing for a school team, which is fun, and I play a lot of five a side. I nowhere near good enough to go professional but it's definitely one of my main hobbies. I play three times a week.

You know, girls in general are scarier than Voldemort.

I get recognized now and again, but the paparazzi aren't following me around.

I don't feel hunky at all.

You couple that with how I looked when I was younger, and growing up... The voice is not quite breaking. It's awful. No, I don't enjoy that at all. But that's one of the things people love and find so endearing about the Harry Potter series, and why they've lasted so long. Because people have grown up with us, and they care about the characters. They're not just some characters in the film, they're people you can relate to, and you care about, and you grew up with, and when they die in this film, people feel it!

A lot of people struggle in their younger years, and I think people can relate to that.

Rupert Grint is exactly like his character Ron, in that they are both incredibly funny, friendly, and loyal.

I think David Yates was just like, "You've got on with it for a few years, I'm gonna let you off the hook." And also, I think it's because the action side of stuff that we were doing, it was going to be very difficult to do all that with all the prosthetics on. It was gonna be hard work, and I think they just said, "You know what?" I think they put a level of trust in me, as well. They said, "You know, we're gonna let Neville Longbottom lose the fat suit, lose the teeth, lose the Adolf Hitler hair."

At least I like to keep it the same. That's why I've got all the same friends. That's why I go back to Leeds as much as possible. I don't know if you know much about England, but Yorkshire is a very sobering place. In the North. It's very gritty. Old mining villages. And people don't really care about celebrities up there. And it's great. And that's why I get back there whenever I can. 'Cause it keeps me very grounded, and it keeps my life very normal, whatever that is.

Don't get paparazzi following me everywhere. My life there is exactly the same as it would have been if I had not been in Harry Potter. So for me, Harry Potter isn't something that changed my life. It's just something I did that was a lot of fun, and I got to experience amazing things from. But my actual, personal life is the same.

I never really looked at it like that, but it's true. It's weird that it's been half my life. Because I lead these two separate lives. I've got my life and Harry Potter, where I travel the world, I make films, I meet amazing people, I do press junkets and stuff. And then I go back home to Leeds, where I live, and I've got the same friends from before. I still go to the pub. I still go to watch the football, soccer. And I go shopping at my local shop.

Obviously, when you're in theater, you have to be in character. You have to prepare for the unexpected. You have to be able to react to things that don't necessarily happen every night, or aren't supposed to happen every night. And you have to react to it in character. In six months, 192 shows, those things did happen. And the experience of that, the ability to stay in character, I feel like I've learned a great deal.

At that age, filming Harry Potter, I never contemplated. I just went in there and did my acting. I never thought, "What's the character actually feeling here? What's he trying to get across?" And never looked at it from that classically trained actor's point of view. And so when Jason Isaacs started throwing up these ideas, I thought, "Whoa. What an interesting way to look at acting." Which is why, again, I would do theater.

Alan Rickman, who was mentored me a lot. He was very keen to offer his opinions on stuff. Not in a pretentious way. Not in a patronizing way.

In fact, my favorite Beatles song is "In My Life." And from that, you can gauge that my friends mean so much to me. I love John Lennon, so it's kind of like moody... There's a lot you can gauge from that. As insignificant as it seems, as an actor, it's an interesting way to approach a character.

There was never any point at which I was considering leaving Harry Potter. If I were to stop acting, it would have been after.

I'm very much open to the possibilities.

Having done television, I was used to either being aware whether I got the part within the same day, or within two, three days max.

As an actor you really want to push yourself, and there's no better way than to do an intense drama.

Leeds is quite laid-back.

I don't think leave the Harry Potter franchise. Not wanting to act, yes. I think it was that stage of rebellion, really. Everyone goes through it. I thought, "I've been an actor. My parents are proud of me being an actor. I want to do something else." I wanted to join the Army, actually, or be in the Air Force, or something like that. I still wouldn't mind doing that. Obviously, it's a bit late for me now.

I mean, I must confess I don't own Harry Potter DVDs. My parents do. They have them all. And they like watching them.

I was a short, chubby kid, pretty shy.

I get too excited about football and rugby.

I think screenwriter Steve Kloves does such a difficult job. And he does a bloody brilliant job, too. Transferring these Harry Potter books into films and making them coherent is one thing. But making them entertaining, as well, is quite another... He does a tremendous job, and he gets a lot of stick. And it's really unfair sometimes, and I challenge anyone else to do the job he does.

I never went to drama school.

I'm very professional.

The reason I feel bad for Steve Kloves is because he doesn't enjoy cutting things out. He's not sitting there with scissors, just laughing maniacally, going, "Ahahaha." He doesn't like doing it. The stories mean so much to him. But it had to go. And David kept saying, "We're gonna try, we're gonna try, we're gonna try" all the way into the shoot until the very last days, when he said, "Sorry, it's just not gonna work."

I'm very self-conscious as an actor, with performances and things, and I don't like watching my own stuff.