What could be better than starting a movie marathon with the onset of the colder season? For me, Harry Potter must not be missing. And what else belongs to the pre-Christmas time? Of course, delicious food. But one detail will now always spoil my appetite when it comes to ‘Philosopher’s Stone’.
This is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone:
- The first film in the Harry Potter series was released in November 2001.
- Directed by the American film producer Chris Columbus, who worked on the films until the third part.
- The film delights especially with its charm and great sets and received three Oscar nominations for production design, costume design, and film score at that time.
Here you can see the trailer for the mobile game Harry Potter: Magic Awakened
A Feast as Described in the Book
Who doesn’t love them? The scenes in the impressive Great Hall, where everyone sits happily together and is served the tastiest dishes.
Fans of the books may still remember the detailed descriptions of the many different dishes. To reflect this in the film, director Chris Columbus insisted on using real food.
Roast beef, ham, turkey, and everything that goes with it was actually prepared and served.
“You could smell the Great Hall before you entered”
As one can imagine, such a scene isn’t necessarily shot in a day.
“There were a few big feasts there. You film something like that for three or four days. On the first day, you arrived and got trays full of lots of meat, vegetables, and roasted potatoes, and could eat everything,” said actor Warwick Davis, who played Professor Flitwick and the goblin Griphook in an interview (via Mirror).
However, this happiness didn’t last long. Filming under the hot stage lights for several hours in a row quickly led to the food developing an unpleasant smell.
“The next day they said: Don’t eat any of the food… you’re just pretending now, it has been there all night. On the fourth day, you could smell the Great Hall before you entered. The food was still the same and had a rather… interesting smell,” recalled Davis.
How was the problem solved? It is almost a miracle that none of the young actors actually tried the food. In later installments, the food was frozen to make molds and replicate the dishes in resin.
Thus, not only was food waste prevented, which otherwise would have to be replaced every few days, but it certainly made the work on set more pleasant for everyone involved.
I will never again be able to see the food in ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ with the same eyes as before.
Almost as much as the actors must have been disgusted by the food, many fans have an aversion to Harry’s spoiled cousin Dudley Dursley, portrayed by Harry Melling. Actors of such prominent roles often have a hard time not being solely associated with that one role.
But Melling achieved a fresh start through Netflix.
In Harry Potter, he was the worst kid ever – Now he has a promising career thanks to Netflix
