Playing Professor McGonagall In ‘Harry Potter’ Was Apparently “Not Satisfying” For Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith has used a theatre award win to make a couple of digs against both the 'Harry Potter' and 'Downton Abbey' franchises.
Dame Maggie Smith was apparently “not satisfied” with her role in the Harry Potter franchise, which saw her become the stern voice chiding – and sometimes encouraging – an entire generation.
Playing Professor McGonagall for ten years in the Harry Potter franchise was wasn’t really acting as far as the Oscar winner (for both 1969’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and 1978’s California Suite) is concerned, as she told London’s Evening Standard this week. She also took a dig at her role as Violet Crawley in six seasons and a movie of Downton Abbey.
Apparently her and Alan Rickman used to say that their parts as Professors McGonagall and Snape in eight Harry Potter movies consisted entirely of reaction shots. “I am deeply grateful for the work in Potter and indeed Downton but it wasn’t what you’d call satisfying,” Smith said. “I didn’t really feel I was acting in those things.
“I wanted to get back to the stage so much because theatre is basically my favourite medium, and I think I felt as though I’d left it all unfinished. But there wasn’t anything that came along.”
just your friendly reminder that maggie smith is a BAD ASS. while filming the final harry potter movies she struggled with breast cancer & was going through chemotherapy but she kept on going. SHE IS MY HERO. pic.twitter.com/mZ0oe0mmoW
— ً (@rvpertgrint) November 19, 2019
Smith spoke to the outlet after winning an Evening Standard Theatre Award for her starring role as Goebbel’s secretary Brunhilde Pomsel in the one-woman show A German Life by Christopher Hampton at London’s Bridge Theatre. The role was her return to the stage after 12 years focusing on film and TV.
She compared learning the entire play to learning her lines for Downton Abbey, in another jibe at the series. “It was actually easier to learn than Downton Abbey, because it wasn’t fragmented. I wasn’t just ordering tea or something.”
But truly the sauciest part of the entire brutal interview was when she was asked about her social life, which apparently involves having dinner with the younger female cast of Downton Abbey.
She was thinking of attending Ian McKellen: On Stage in the West End, but was afraid that he would then impersonate her in the show. “He does them all the time,” she explained. “I rather acidly told him that I’d done one of him but people didn’t know him well enough to recognise it.”
No one is safe from the savage burns of Maggie Smith.