culture
Fans Say Goodbye to Harry Potter and Their Childhoods
Matthew Lewis has faced armies of Death Eaters, Lord Voldemort, and Potions class, but a crowd of cheering fangirls? Now that’s intimidating.
To the echoing chant of “Neville, Neville, Neville!” from the front gates of Casa Loma last night, Torontoist witnessed the childhoods of hundreds of devoted Harry Potter fans come to an end. Those aren’t our words.
“I started reading the books at such a young age. I feel like my childhood is kind of over,” said Elizabeth Leclair, who arrived with her friends at the front stone wall five hours before the stars were scheduled to walk the red (er, black) carpet into Casa Loma for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2‘s Toronto premiere after party. At 23, one would assume there have been many opportunities in her life to mark the transition from child to adult, yet the final Harry Potter installment seemed to be Leclair’s milestone of choice—one that she documented in time and space with a sign that read, “You Make My Longbottoms Drop.”
Caitlin Reid, 18, Elizabeth Leclair, 23, and Nicole Reid, 22, make their feelings towards Neville/Lewis very clear.
The confession, of course, refers to Harry Potter character Neville Longbottom and the actor who plays him, Matthew Lewis. Timed perfectly with the long-awaited vindication of the adorable underdog Neville in the series, the film’s premiere has also served as an international coming-out for Lewis, the franchise’s new “breakout stud.” Sure, the guy has eyes more entrancing than the Imperius Curse, but he was still the only actor actually in HP7b to show up in Toronto. Yet hundreds of fans travelled long distances, arrived with hours to spare, and chanted patiently in the hopes of glimpsing Lewis from many feet away, through a barrier of TV crews and a cruelly placed fog machine.
“[I’m here] basically to see the stars,” said 14-year-old Marie Tucker, who was in town from Arizona visiting her grandparents in West Hill. But her motivation seemed to reach far beyond celebrity spotting. The Tuckers were in Niagara Falls earlier that day when Marie heard about the party on the news and dragged her family back into the city early, “screaming and freaking out” along the way, just so she could mark the end the series in style. “I’ll never have a chance to do this again,” she said. It was a statement birthed in innocence and devotion, but came off as unintentionally sad from a young girl, hands playing with her maroon and yellow tie in excitement, apparently not planning to feel such intense admiration for anything ever again.
Fourteen-year-old Arizona resident Marie Tucker with her father. According to him, she “dragged” him to the black carpet. We swore we heard him leading the chanting.
And she’s not alone. Potterheads took over the streets of Toronto all day yesterday, some beginning their pledges of allegiance before the morning sunrise in front of the Scotiabank Theatre. Even on the other side of the carpet, Desgrassi: The Next Generation actress Charlotte Arnold admitted she grew up with the Harry Potter characters, and the last film signals the “end of an era.” She too, at midnight book launches and movie releases, put herself through physical discomfort (not counting the high heels at last night’s party) to show her enthusiasm for the franchise.
Maybe it’s a generational thing. On the black carpet, actor Michael Sheen revealed his childhood obsession was football, which he played “every waking hour of every day.” But instead of waiting for hours on end for the chance to touch his favourite player’s hand, the biggest testament of his love for the sport was learning his multiplication tables before his dad got home from work so he could watch Liverpool games on TV.
It’s hard to imagine a young Sheen as part of the mob that erupted into wails of “I LOVE YOU”s and “ONE MORE TIME, ONE MORE TIME” when Lewis finally arrived and wandered off the carpet to reach the fans at the wall. The frenzy that circled him made the actor look like the world’s most powerful Deluminator, absorbing all of the area’s surrounding light sources. Like his fictional counterpart, Lewis isn’t used to this level of attention. That is, this decibel level of attention.
“It’s all very overwhelming, to be honest with you. This doesn’t happen back home. It’s lovely, don’t get me wrong—it’s very nice. I’m charmed by it all,” he said, revealing a similar childhood obsession with Star Wars. (He used to fall asleep to the movies several times every night; “I was a weird kid with Star Wars,” he said.) But that’s where the similarities end. Even his meeting with Carrie Fisher, his first-ever crush, six or seven years ago at a convention, was a bit more understated.
“I didn’t scream; no, that would have been weird. Not that they’re weird. Oh, that sounds awful. I mean, I didn’t want to scream in Carrie Fisher’s face,” he gushed. “I was speechless though, I remember that. I think there’s a difference in the American and Canadian audiences and the British ones. Canadians and Americans scream, whereas Britain’s [fans] panic and go quiet. So that’s what I did.”
And ain’t that the North American way, to cling onto the elusive Fountain of Youth as loudly and as publicly as possible. As the TV crews packed up and the carpet rolled away, fans and their parents still waited with voices raised in the hopes Lewis would return, revealing that the end of Harry Potter was just some magical waking nightmare. Of course, they still have until Thursday at midnight before the final chapter finishes, at which time Torontoist will use our newly purchased ear plugs again. This time not for wails of excitement, but wails of sorrow.
Photos by Corbin Smith/Torontoist.