On the first day of shooting Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Daniel Radcliffe’s allergic reaction to contact lenses created movie magic.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came out way back in 2001, so it would be easy to assume that every behind-the-scenes tidbit has been revealed by now. But not so.
Speaking to Empire Magazine, producer David Heyman — who worked on every single movie — revealed something new about the final scene of the film, which apparently was shot on the first day:
"I’ll never forget being on set that first day, filming the last scene of Philosopher’s Stone where Hagrid and Harry bid farewell at the railway station at Hogsmeade. Dan [Radcliffe] was wearing these contact lenses to make his eyes green, and he had an allergic reaction to them. His eyes were red and swollen and we had to take them out – we thought we may add that green digitally, though ultimately we decided not to because it felt artificial. But Dan’s eyes were puffy and red, and oddly it was quite appropriate for the scene where he was saying goodbye to Hagrid."
Watch the scene for yourself:
The incident must’ve been quite memorable for Heyman to recall it above everything else, almost two decades later. I’ve never noticed it before, but now that Heyman pointed it out, Harry’s eyes do look rather bloodshot.
Radcliffe was only 11 back then, so to continue the final scene without any fuss highlights how good of an actor he really is. Kudos to him for completing the scene.
“I realized I had something special when I first read the book,” Heyman remembered. “I loved it. It moved me. I fell in love with it before it was published.” The public would fall in love too, with both the books and the movies. Harry Potter remains beloved to this day, and there may be more of it in our future:
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