Helena Bonham Carter Caused A Wee Bit Of Internal Bleeding For A Harry Potter Co-Star
In the Harry Potter movies, the evil villain Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) is obsessed with racial purity. It seems that magical ability is a genetic trait in the Wizarding World, and two magical parents typically have magical children. Occasionally, though, magical children will be born to non-magical — or muggle — parents. Voldemort sought to murder any children with muggle blood and leave only his wicked Death Eater cult standing. The films' dark themes of eugenics aren't too openly discussed in dialogue, however, and none of the Harry Potter characters draw a parallel between Voldemort and, say, Adolf Hitler. They're too busy evading capture and seeking magical Horcruxes to stop and talk.
One of Voldemort's disciples is a wicked witch named Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter), who is introduced while serving a hefty sentence in Azkaban prison. In the series' fifth film — David Yates' "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" — Bellatrix is sprung from prison and spends the following sequels wreaking havoc. In the original novels, written by an author, Bellatrix plays a much more involved role. In the movies, she is a vicious supporting player. Because she is played by the energetic and committed Carter, Bellatrix snarls and mugs with the best of them, gnashing her teeth in sadistic glee.
Carter, however, took her role a little too literally in one scene in "Phoenix," a story she related in a 2007 interview with Entertainment Weekly. Her character notoriously killed the parents of Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) and sought to torture Neville as well. While improvising her torture methods, Carter stuck her magic wand in Lewis' ear. It did some actual harm.
Auris Puncturus
One should know immediately that Carter was not being reckless with Lewis and wished her co-star no ill. She wasn't trying to cause any injury or discomfort. Indeed, Carter thought she was being playful. She explained:
"By mistake, I poked him in his ear. [...] I thought I could brandish the wand like a sort of Q-tip, and clean out his ear. Sort of torture it. But unfortunately, he moved toward the wand as I was prodding it. And it actually perforated his eardrum. Isn't that horrific? I damaged him! He's such a nice young man, he didn't admit to me that he actually had some internal bleeding about three days later."
Carter was embarrassed that no one told her about Lewis' injury and acknowledged that it was a dangerous maneuver. Luckily, Carter points out, there was no permanent damage to Lewis' ear. "But there was pain, and blood," she said. "Well, torture happens. Sorry! Oops! I think I took my sadism a bit too literally." It seems both actors got over it quickly, though, as they were making fun of the incident as soon as Lewis was back on the set. Carter would playfully yell at him as if she had robbed him of his hearing. No further injuries to Lewis or his ears occurred during the following "Harry Potter" sequels.
Both Lewis and Carter have continued to work to this day. In cinemas, Lewis last appeared in the New Zealand romance "Baby Done." Carter, meanwhile, recently starred in Netflix's "Enola Holmes 2."