Word: leavesden
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...Harry Potter movies are filmed primarily at a former airplane factory 20 miles outside London. Inside Leavesden Studios, as it's called, is a dreamlike mishmash of Harry Potter's past: bits and pieces of the Whomping Willow, signs from the stores in Diagon Alley, the smashed-up remains of giant chess pieces from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Honestly, is this any place to raise a child...
...that's what's been going on at Leavesden for the past five years. When Daniel Radcliffe was cast as Harry (after a small part in The Tailor of Panama), he was only 11. Emma Watson (who plays nerd-girl Hermione Granger) was 10; Rupert Grint (Potter pal Ron Weasley), almost 12. Now, with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire set to open in two weeks, they've spent a third of their lives making movies. They've gone from children to teenagers entirely within the weird, closed bubble of the Potterverse...
Radcliffe's best friend at Leavesden is, of all people--well, let him explain it: "Will Steggle, who's my--I hate to use the word, because I'll sound like a precocious child star--but he's credited as being my personal dresser. He is in actuality my best friend in the world. And he's 39. Which is upsetting, because he is so much older, and it means he's gonna die probably before...
...that different from Hogwarts. "There's never been a day when I've thought, I really don't want to be here," Radcliffe says. "Because for me, it's this or it's school. And I've never really loved being in school that much." He does leave Leavesden from time to time. This month he's acting in an Australian coming-of-age movie called December Boys. But the outside world can take a little getting used to. After all, he's a star. "I don't think about it because when you start to think about it, that...
...movies," he says. "We could shoot a four- or five-hour version, release part one at Thanksgiving and part two at Christmas." Otherwise, Columbus is keeping mum on his Potter plans, and a veil of secrecy is descending on the second movie. On Columbus' office wall at Leavesden, he has tacked up renderings and scene sketches from Chamber of Secrets. He kindly asks the visiting journalist to ignore them. Too late. It's a car--a drawing of the magically souped-up Ford Anglia that carries Harry and Ron to their second year at Hogwarts. It's turquoise, just...