Richard Harris Believed the Phoenix was Real Proving Magic is Real! The 'Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts Special' Warmed Our Hearts with the Magic of Love!
"To love so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever."
In combing through the Wizarding World we grew up with, the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts proved that real magic went into the making of this series. That magic is love, and that's what this story was always about anyway. In the reunions between old friends, interviews between cast and creatives, and genuine joy captured on screen, the world saw, once and for all, that the making of the Harry Potter series was always a labor of love. The adult actors such as Robbie Coltrane and director of the first two films Chris Columbus remarked on the parental love they felt towards the, at the time, child actors. The main cast of kids felt the same.
Even with each other, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint shared an emotional moment where they confessed the importance they each held in the other's life. Grint said, "We will always be part of each other's lives." The two hugged. Grint said very seriously, "I love you." Then, after a comedic pause that only Ron Weasley could pull off, added, "As a friend." The two burst out in laughter, and, it was, once again, as if no time had passed.
This love carried onto the screen. In one of the most endearing reveals, Chris Columbus and Daniel Radcliffe discussed how Richard Harris, the first Albus Dumbledore, believed that the mechanical Phoenix, Fawkes, used in filming was real. Columbus recollected, "You and I had one of our greatest laughs together with Richard Harris ... we had an animatronic version of Fawkes the Phoenix, and it was this big red bird that doesn't exist. Richard came in and looked at the Phoenix and said, 'Wow, they train these animals marvelously these days.'" They never told Harris that the bird had been fake. They did not want to ruin the magic for him. That is love.
The Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts retrospective is streaming on HBO Max now!
