Columbus, Chris J

Two decades after the film’s release, Daniel Radcliffe and the director, Chris Columbus, take us inside four key scenes.“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” ruined Daniel Radcliffe’s expectations for what is normal on a film set.The Great Hall, where he shot many of the scenes from the first of eight films based on the J.K. Rowling series, was a phantasmagoria of detail. Platters of real lamb chops, roasted potatoes and puddings sat alongside 400 hand-lettered menus and — for at least one scene — hundreds of real, glowing candles. The hall set took 30 people a little over four months to construct.“I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of sets I’ve been on since in my career that are of that scale,” Radcliffe said in a video interview from his New York apartment in October.Directed by Chris Columbus, the story of a boy who, upon turning 11, discovers he’s a wizard and goes off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry opened Nov. 16, 2001, and went on to gross more than $1 billion worldwide.When Radcliffe and the young actors who played his friends, Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), were making the film, they weren’t just pretending to have the time of their lives — they were, Columbus said.“That’s why we shot with three or four cameras — if one of the kids looked into the camera or smiled like they couldn’t believe their good fortune, I had something else to cut to,” he said in a phone conversation on a walk near his home in Malibu in September.That joy was in large part thanks, Radcliffe said, to Columbus’s infectious passion for his work.“Chris approaches set in the correct way, in my opinion, which is the attitude that we are the luckiest people in the world to get to do this for a living,” he said.Columbus wasn’t initially sure he wanted to do a film about wizards, but after his daughter Eleanor (who has a cameo as Susan Bones) kept bugging him to read the books, he finally cracked open the first installment and read all 223 pages in a day.“I thought, ‘I have to make a movie out of this,’” he said.But when he called his agent to set up a meeting with Warner Bros., “She said, ‘Yeah, you and about 30 other directors,’” Columbus said.So he came up with a strategy: He asked for the last meeting slot with studio executives and spent about 10 days writing a script from the director’s point of view.“I think the most impressive thing about that to them was that I did something for free,” he said, laughing. “No one in Hollywood does anything for free.”Some six weeks later, he learned the job was his — with one condition: He had to fly to Scotland to meet Rowling.“I sat there for two and a half hours, talking nonstop, explaining my vision for the movie,” he said. “And she said, ‘That’s exactly the same way I see it.’”He also got her to go to bat for him on one major casting decision: his Harry. He loved Radcliffe from the moment the actor read for the part — “He was phenomenal,” Columbus said — but the studio wasn’t so sure.“Finally, I called Jo, and I said, ‘Will you look at this kid?’” he said. When she pronounced him “the perfect Harry Potter,” Columbus recalled, the studio went along.Radcliffe, now 32, said that while he does not consider his performance in the film brilliant acting, he’s no longer embarrassed by some of the scenes the way he was in his late teens.“Now I’m able to look back and go, ‘OK, you were a kid, it’s fine,’” he said, laughing. “It’s still a lovely memory.”In separate interviews, Radcliffe and Columbus recalled what it took to shoot four key scenes. Here are edited excerpts from our conversations.The Great HallThe children in this Great Hall scene are distracted from their food, which turned out to be a good thing.Warner Bros.Creating the main gathering place at Hogwarts, where the students eat all their meals at House tables, was a mammoth undertaking.COLUMBUS When the actors walk into the Great Hall for the first time, what you see on their faces is the genuine reaction to seeing this incredible set for the first time.RADCLIFFE It never really lost that power.COLUMBUS The production designer Stuart Craig and [the set decorator] Stephenie McMillan had such an incredible eye for detail. I opened up one of the menus, and realized they’d handwritten all 400 on parchment paper. I thought, “Oh my God, this is the real deal.” I’ve since never had such extraordinary production design.But there were a few hiccups.COLUMBUS The food came in — an American Thanksgiving feast — and it was meant to last for eight to 10 hours. I came back the next day, and it was still the same food! By Day 3, I can only say the scent of the Great Hall was getting a little funky.There was also a mishap.COLUMBUS When all the kids file into the Great Hall for the first time, we see hundreds of floating candles in the air. And then something horrible happened — the flames of the candles started to burn through the clear string holding them and started to drop! We had to get everybody out of the set — and then we shot it two more times, telling ourselves, “We’re just going to add C.G.I. candles.”RADCLIFFE We scattered! I’m sure Chris was more stressed out by it, but as a kid, you’re like, “This is really funny.”Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More