Alan Rickman Played A Foul Prank During A Serious Harry Potter Scene
Despite the damage author J.K. Rowling has done to her own legacy, the Harry Potter films gave us some wonderful actors like Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley). It also showcased actors at the top of their field, like the late Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) and Michael Gambon (Albus Dumbledore). They might seem like unlikely people to take on a series of films about kids with magic (they do tell you never to work with animals or children), yet they are beloved for their performances.
As it turns out, Rickman and Gambon had a bit of fun with their roles and the kids they were acting with. They played a major prank on Daniel Radcliffe during a big scene where all the students are sleeping in sleeping bags in the Great Hall, according to a 2014 Reddit AMA that Radcliffe did to promote his film "Horns." As it turns out, even director Alfonso Cuarón helped coordinate what happened. Let's just say it's not exactly a subtle joke.
' ... it was one of the members of Britain's acting royalty'
Radcliffe was asked about any pranks he pulled on set, and he decided instead to talk about one that was pulled on him. Radcliffe explains that this was in the third film "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," and it was in the scene where the kids had gathered in the Great Hall after Dementor attacks and Sirius Black escaping the wizarding prison. He said:
" ... the camera starts very very wide, and comes in so that it's an inch from my face, a very long developing set, yeah, and Alan Rickman decided he would plant one of those fart machines in my, uh, sleeping bag, and they waited until like -the camera had come in for this huge DRAMATIC developing shot, and then unleashed this tremendous noise in the great hall.
"I immediately thought: 'This is one of the other kids f****** around, and we were going to get in trouble.' But as it turns out, it was one of the members of Britain's acting royalty. I think I laughed a lot, was probably a bit embarrassed, but it was really really funny."
You can see (and hear) it in the behind-the-scenes footage from the Blu-ray box set. One thing that Radcliffe left out is spoken about there. Cuarón said that Radcliffe had asked to be placed near a "particular girl that he fancied," making this so much worse (and so much funner).
All the Harry Potter films are currently streaming on Max.