Bill Nighy Talks Up Role In Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

It wasn't long ago that Bill Nighy was first rumored to be in the last two Harry Potter films as new Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour. Then he confirmed the role and now, as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens, he's talking a bit about the role. Read on for Nighy's comments to SciFiWire and quite a few potential spoilers.

Nighy says that as soon as he returns to the UK from his promotional tour for G-Force he'll get to work on Potter 7.

...there's no giving too much away, because everybody's read the books. So he's a kind of tragic figure. You have that element. And he knows what's coming. So that's a very moving thing to play. He's also very powerful, and he's had a very complicated progress to the top. And he has an interesting relationship with Harry, because Harry views him initially with complete contempt, but then it's softened by subsequent events.

...there's one where he comes and delivers Dumbledore's legacy to the three children. He gives them all of the things that Dumbledore has left them, and that's when it's first indicated that he may not be around for much longer. So it's quite an affecting scene.

On the page, many of the character's first big scenes actually take place in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,  but those have been bumped to the seventh film. Having seen the current chapter, that's no surprise; there's enough in it already without introducing another new character, and this way the on screen version of Scrimgeour may get to stand in as a pseudo-replacement for Dumbledore. As a new authority figure, naturally he has a contentious relationship with Harry, but they achieve some sort of balance in the end. Makes sense, but the question is, have director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves created any new scenes for him? (One of their inventions in Half-Blood Prince, was among my favorite small moments in the movie.)