Source: ‘Blue Peter’, BBC One, British Broadcasting Corporation (UK).
Interviewers: Andy Akinwolere, Konnie Huq, Gethin Jones, Zoe Salmon and 25 competition winners.
Context: The interview was aired hours before the midnight release of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.
Notes: The interview was recorded on the 5th of July. ‘Friday Night with Jonathan Ross’, is next door to the studio where Blue Peter is filmed, and we know that Jo filmed the 2007 ‘Friday Night with Jonathan Ross’ interview on July 5th, so she recorded them back-to-back, even though the Blue Peter interview would not air until over a fortnight later. A competition was run for children under the age of 14 in the UK to visit the Blue Peter studios, meet J K Rowling and ask her an original question. 25 children were selected and each received a free copy of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.
Memorable lines
The thing is, most of the magical objects in Harry Potter are double-edged in some way. There are very few objects that are straight -- that are completely benign. They all seem to have some sort of negative quality to them. So, and it's how you use them. And there are a couple of objects in Book Seven that might be quite desirable, but you have to wait to find out about that.
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JAMES: Did knowing that the later books would be turned into films affect how you wrote them, in particular how the actors portray the characters.
JKR: I'm often asked that, and I think it's a very good question. The truthful answer is No. I think maybe twice, literally in the writing of the whole series, and one of them was when I wrote the giant, Grawp. I thought, "They've gotta film that. Oh well." That was one time when I stopped and thought, because CGI, Computer Generated Imagery, is very expensive to do. But I can't. That's the glory of being a novelist, you know, I probably spend billions of Pounds on a page... It's Warner Bros.' problem, so they keep up with me. So, no, it doesn't affect what I write. I suppose you become a little bit more aware when you stand back from the story, that it might be challenging to do as a film, but that never affects me while I'm actually creating it, or stops me doing anything or makes me do anything.
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NAOMI: Can you tell us a bit more about Trevor the Toad? Is he an animagus of Neville's Uncle Algie?
JKR: See, I love all these theories, I really love this. Ummm, no. But I love the fact that everyone is now so tuned in to the Harry Potter world that every tiny part and character is closely examined through a microscope by devoted readers to decide what they're hiding. But no, Trevor really is just a toad. That is definitely it. He's not the dead Dumbledore come back to help anyone...
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ROSE: My question is did Albus Dumbledore ever fall in love?
JKR: Ummmm... Well, in the course of a long life, I think nearly everyone falls in love, but you probably shouldn't read too much into that answer.
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QUESTION: What is your favorite invention from Fred and George's joke shop and why?
JKR: Skiving Snackboxes of course. Well actually... no, that's not quite true. The very best thing for me that they did was the ummm... Daydream. When you sort of... it's sort of a portable daydream that you can experience the moment you want to. Someone here has read the book about ten times, so she can remember the exact phrasing better than I can. That's my favorite thing. But the thing that you see them use is the Skiving Snackboxes, they would be very handy. I used to be very prone to nosebleeds when I was younger and it was excellent sitting there in your classes and there I go, I'm off, I'm out. And that's where the idea came from, because one of the things that they make is Nosebleed Nougats, something that you can just make happen to get you out of class.
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Harry Potter: A Blue Peter Special
