Those who haven’t read the Harry Potter books and don’t want to be spoiled look elsewhere now!

While on the rounds promoting Alice in Wonderland Helena Bonham Carter spoke to Rotten Tomatoes about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Since Order of the Phoenix she has played whack job Bellatrix Lestrange, and in the next two films she gets up to quite a few immoral deeds, such as murdering and torturing some the characters we’ve known for year.

In the interview Carter talks about her last day of filming, falling off a table, and comments on some girl on girl duelling that will take place during the final films climax.

“I’m mostly in [Deathly Hallows: Part 2],” she told RT. “But it was fun. I died on my last day, which was really weird — to actually be [killed] on my last day. Molly Weasley – Julie Walters – kills me.”

And it’ll be quite the moment, she explained. “I do get a good death scene,” she told us. “It was really exhausting. As usual! [I'm] duelling, with a wand, on a table. I fell right off. I was clever enough to say, ‘If you’re going to ask me to duel, backwards, can we put a stuntman at the end?’ They said, ‘Ah, you won’t need one.’ And what did I do? Walked straight off.

“You’d think with 70 people looking at you, one of them would go, ‘Er, could you stop?!’ No! They loved it. I nearly killed myself — on the day that I died.”

For Bonham-Carter, bringing Bellatrix to an end was an emotional experience given her investment in the creation of the character as she appears in the films. “Bellatrix wasn’t on the page,” she explained. “I did think, What can I do to make this interesting? She was just written as tall and gaunt, but I knew there was something I got attracted to — playing arrested development. You know, children. Bellatrix is another child — stuck and totally anarchic.”

MTV also interviewed the actress, and she talks about the part in the film when Hermione takes the form of Bellatrix. Non-US people may not be able to watch it, so click here to read what she has to say.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 will be released in November (we may be getting a trailer with Clash of the Titans in April), and the final film will be released next July.

JoBlo reports that The Hollywood Reporter reports (the latter won’t load on my browser, hence this indirect route) that 3D test screenings for Clash of the Titans went well earlier this week, and so the film will hit cinemas in 3 glorious dimensions. Clash looks like it could be a great action epic (the creature designs are particularly awesome), and 3D will mean that the effects are even more in-our-faces. Which is good. Usually.

Shockingly, WB has also decided to release Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts I & II in 3D, again meaning lots of magicflasherycolourfulsplosion effects coming right out of the screen at you. I enjoyed the use of the format in Coraline and Up, where it was utilised in a more subtle way to add more depth to a scene, rather than to exploit an insane amount of VFX (and our wallets), but the movies released this way will probably still look cooler anyway.

In the February issue of Empire Magazine there is an on-set preview of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 which will be released in November. In the article Daniel Radcliffe talks about filming the ‘Seven Potters’ sequence, which fans of the book will know takes place towards the beginning of the film.

In order to protect Harry from Voldemort and the Death Eaters Ron, Hermione, and several other characters drink some Polyjuice Potion in order to take the appearance of Harry, and to act as decoys. Not only will the scene feature seven Harry Potters on-scene at the same time, the following events include aerial wizard battles, chase scenes down busy highways, and deaths.

“We are actually filming what is probably the single most complicated sequence we’ve done in any of the films. Everyone’s changing into me and nobody really knows what’s going on. I’m dressing up as everyone else ad they’re dressing up as me, and, well it’s very confusing.”

“It’s the hardest film to do, absolutely. I’m not sure anyone would disagree with me on that one. But as long as you equal that kind of toughness with your enthusiasm, then it sort of goes away”

Director David Yates, who Empire describe as “considerably greyer” than the last time they saw him, spoke about how different Part 1 feels compared to previous movies:

“Jo [Rowling] described the book as a bit of a road movie so the first of the two movies is gonna feel very much like that. I watched the first assembly of Part One just last week, and the most interesting dynamic is that you’re taking these three characters we know quite well away from the comfort zone of Hogwarts. And you really can’t underestimate the odd power of that.”

Emma Watson who plays Hermione Granger took time out of filming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, which was nice of her. (Merry Christmas from Filmonic too if you will be celebrating it over the upcoming days).

In other Deathly Hallows news Bill Nighy, who will play Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour in the upcoming films, spoke to The Daily Record about his role. (Potential spoilers for those who haven’t read the book).

“Scrimgeour is a tragic figure,” said Bill. “He knows what’s coming. It’s a very moving thing to play.

“He’s also very powerful and has had a very complicated progress to the top. And he has an interesting relationship with Harry, who views him initially with contempt. But then it’s softened by subsequent events.

“There’s a scene where he delivers Dumbledore’s legacy to the three children. He gives them all the things Dumbledore has left them, and that’s when it’s indicated he may not be around for much longer.”

We got our first glimpse at Nighy as Scrimgeour in the teaser trailer that was released earlier this month.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 will be released next November, and Deathly Hallows: Part 2 will be released July 2011.

Earlier this year producer David Heyman revealed that the final battle in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (or The Battle of Hogwarts as it’s known in the book) will be around 30 minutes long. That’s 30 minutes of wizarding duels, death, and destruction that will draw the franchise to a close in an epic fashion.

Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy in the films, recently spoke to MTV while promoting the Half-Blood Prince DVD and he spoke about filming these scenes (we heard that around 43 principal cast members were needed on set for filming last month).

“It’s kind of cool, because this is the first time we’ve had so many castmembers on one set at one time, especially everyone from the evil camp and everyone from the good camp in a Western-style showdown — without revealing too much,” said Felton, who plays the nefarious Draco Malfoy. “It’s an amazing last scene, what we’ve shot of it so far. It’s very exciting.”

That’s not the only scene left to complete. The yearlong shoot was originally slated to wrap up at the end of April, but it’s now been extended well into June. Though the end is far off, Felton laughed that he, Daniel Radcliffe and the rest of the cast are looking forward to what should be a killer wrap party, a decade after they began filming the first movie in the series.

In the meantime, Felton is looking forward to returning to the “Potter” set across the Atlantic. “I’ve rarely had an opportunity to work with the evil family,” he said. “I’m working with Helena Bonham Carter, who’s a lovely lady and also a completely scary witch when she wants to be. I’m enjoying working with adult cast tremendously.”

He also told Female First that they’ve “been shooting outdoors at the moment and they build, basically this decrepit castle that’s all been smashed up and it’s quite incredible”.

It looks like Hogwarts will be a great pile of rubble when it’s all been said and done. I wonder if a quick ‘Reparo!‘ will be sufficient?

One of the main selling points of the Half-Blood Prince Blu-Ray was the revealing of the first bit of footage from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. However, in the age of the internet and camera phones things don’t stay purely on discs for long, and the footage has made it’s way online. It’s not the best quality so hopefully Warner Bros released it in HD in the near future.

It’s more of a teaser trailer for the two films as it contains footage from both. We see Harry, Ron and Hermione in the middle of a busy London street, the trio battling in a forest, and we get our first look at Bill Nighy as Rufus Scrimgeour.

The image above is the second official image released for the film, and features Harry holding a wand as he searches a house, presumably Grimmauld Place which we saw at the beginning of Order of the Phoenix.

USA Today got their hands on the first official image from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. It shows Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint looking a bit wary, and they have every reason to be:

“They’re paranoid,” says Grint. “It’s quite a scary world because the Snatchers and Death Eaters are running around everywhere. Harry, Ron and Hermione are just camping out in random places, living rough, in regular clothes.” Snatchers and Death Eaters are minions of the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).

Grint adds, grinning: “Me and Dan actually have some stubble.” His facial hair served as a kind of invisibility cloak for the lanky, redheaded Grint, who went unrecognized by fans recently while on location in the Welsh countryside. Dubbed a “road movie” by producer David Heyman, Hallows was envisioned by director David Yates as more grounded in reality than the previous Potter movies.

“It’s going to feel very real,” Yates says. “We’re going for a vérité approach. Being away from Hogwarts, they’re like these three refugees on the run. They’re out in the big bad world, facing real danger, unguarded by those wonderful benign wizards at Hogwarts. They don’t have a home to go to.

“We’re kind of pulling away from the magic a bit and bringing more reality to it,” he says.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 will be released next November and fans can get their first look at the movie on the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Blu-ray which will be released next week. You can pre-order yours here!

With Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince being released on DVD and Blu-ray in just over a week the Potter cast are out promoting again. In the video below Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint are interviewed on the set of Deathly Hallows (which will be split into two) and they talk about illness, wand battles and how the next films will be different to the previous instalments.

In other Deathly Hallows news director David Yates revealed that Daniel Radcliffe will be baring all again. No horses will be around this time, instead it will be in one of Ron’s visions.

(Possible spoilers for those who haven’t read the books)

In one scene, “a horcrux [carrying a piece of Voldemort’s soul] defends itself by producing nightmarish visions, and one shows Hermione and Harry embracing and kissing,” explained Yates. “It’s something intriguing and sensual for Rupert to react to, and Dan will be bare for that.”

In the book Ron has to destroy a horcrux carrying a piece of Voldemort’s soul, and to try and prevent Ron from succeeding it projects visions of Harry and Hermione getting it on, playing on Ron’s fear that the two have feelings for each other. I’m sure Yates will be aware of the rating so I doubt we will be getting anything too graphic or sexual, although I wonder if Hermione will be unclothed too?

John Hurt appeared in the very first Harry Potter film back in 2001 and he will be returning nearly ten years on to reprise his role of Ollivander in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. His character appeared briefly in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, however he was being abducted by Death Eaters and had a bag over his head, so it probably wasn’t John Hurt.

Hurt spoke to Rotten Tomatoes about playing the wand shop-keeper again, and he also had a mini-rant about the British film industry.

JH: I’ve filmed one, which actually is the last one, and now I’ve got the penultimate one to do which is in November, and that wraps it all up. It’s a big loss for Britain in terms of having a big studio movie here, but it’s not representative of our culture in terms of the films that we make. I am convinced that though Pinewood and Shepperton — the big studios — playing host to big movies is very important, our film business is in the independent world. Of that I’m convinced…

Do you think the big franchise movies shooting in the UK give a false impression of the health of our industry? All these productions move in and hire local talent, but they aren’t British films.

JH: No, they’re not British films. Even Harry Potter isn’t a British [franchise]. We gave it to Warners, we just sit and collect. That always infuriates me. I do think huge areas of the industry are being neglected and we’ve lost the ability for middle-budget films. When we did have a stronger industry — and not just a business — we did have room for middle-budget films. They’ve gone out of the window, as they’ve done in America as well, but a $20m picture would be wonderful to make every now and then. We could do a lot for that.

But it’s like any country, if you don’t have a lot of money to spend. And it’s interesting seeing how much money gets spent on Harry Potter. It’s quite absurd, really. I watch it and think it’s just the same as Hollywood. I look around and you’ve got three costumes there, none of which are likely to be worn, and they’re all replicas of each other. It’s a vacuous waste of money and it drives me insane.”

I’ll have to agree with Hurt on this one. If you watch any behind the scene feature on any big movie you see lots of waste. Before Half-Blood Prince came out I saw a behind the scenes TV special on the joke shop set which Fred and George Weasley own in the film. Warner Bros. had craftsmen and designers working for weeks on background props that weren’t even shown on-camera. The scene itself lasted less than a minute. However, I suppose they did provide work for local people who needed it.

The ‘British’ thing is also quite annoying. Harry Potter was created by a British author, the movies star British actors with mostly British directors, producers and crew, and it’s shot in Britain. Yet when each movie makes $900+ million 95% of is goes into the bank accounts of Warner Bros. in America. I appreciate that without Warner Bros. ploughing $150+ million into each film they wouldn’t have happened in the first place, however it’s a shame the movies will have no major long lasting impact on the British film industry. The industry doesn’t have a lot of money floating around and it could have benefited from some Harry Potter coin.

Most of the filming for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I is complete, however now the cast and crew have to work on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II which is expected to finish filming next April.

Chris Rankin who plays Percy Weasly updated his Twitter account today, informing his followers that he will be woken up at 5am tomorrow morning for filming…along with 43 other cast members!

excited for filming in the morrow, but not excited for the 5am wake-up call… 43 principal cast on set tomorrow…!

43 cast members? That’s just about everyone! From the book I can remember a few big parts towards the end which feature a lot of the characters. The scene is probably related to the Battle of Hogwarts which is basically one huge wizard battle. It’s going to be one busy day (of many i’m sure) on the Deathly Hallows set!