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Robblie Coltrane: In terms of the famous thing...You have money but you can't do all the things with it that you would like to do. You can't go to Spain for your holidays. You get leapt on and mobbed by people. I find it very odd because I don't understand what they want for you....

[film clip of when Harry meets Hagrid]

JKR: When we came to the point where there was even a possibility of Hagrid appearing on screen, I do remember thinking, "Well, that's Robbie Coltrane." Because Hagrid is this - he's very lovable, but he must, if he is to be plausible, have a center of menace as well. I mean, Hagrid is, physically, very intimidating, and, as the stories go on in the books, anyway, he has to capable of real anger, and I felt that that needed someone with real range to give that sense of suppressed power. And he's a father figure to Harry in the books.

[film clip of Norbert scene]

JKR: Hagrid was always supposed to be this almost elemental force. He's like the king of the forest, or the Green Man. He's this semi-wild person who lives on the edge of the forest, and for Harry, Ron, and Hermione, he's benign, but he's supposed to be quite intimidating toward the people who don't, maybe, appreciate his particular taste in wild creatures, monsters.

[film clip of Buckbeak]

"It is a fantastic idea that you might actually leave something that’s worth leaving. Two billion people saw the Bond movies. The same sort of numbers watched the Harry Potter films, and they’re good films. It’s beautiful writing, it’s beautifully imaginative stories, it’s positive about being young. Nothing could be nicer than that."

[End of excerpt]