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Interview with Harry Melling

It was every youngster's dream to be in the Harry Potter movie, but as a baddie? Harry Melling tells MATTHEW NIXSON of the joys of playing the horrid Dudley Dursley.

Harry Melling says Dudley Dursley is a selfish, spoiled, nasty little brat.

Then, with a wicked smile worthy of Dursley himself, 12-year-old Harry admits that he loved playing the character in the forthcoming Harry Potter movie.

"It was fun playing the baddie though, more challenging," he said, sitting in the garden of his family's comfy Mill Hill home.

Grandson of the second Dr. Who, cult actor Patrick Troughton, Harry is clearly gifted with the family knack of spotting a good, albeit rather obnoxious, part.

The film in question is, of course, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a magical adventure based on JK Rowling's million-selling children's books. Due out in November, it will be playing to packed cinemas for months if it achieves half the success of the novels. And its young cast, including Harry himself, will become overnight stars.

Such are the expectations, Harry has already been signed up for a sequel, with filming rumoured to be starting later this year. It was his mother, Joanna Melling, an illustrator of children's books, who first picked up the Harry Potter series.

"I just thought they were wonderful," she said. "When I heard they were doing a film I knew they would be needing a lot of children so I sent a photo to the casting director."

A year passed and the Mellings had all but given up hope when the call came. "It was brilliant, just the greatest feeling," he recalls.

Harry auditioned three times with Daniel Radcliffe, who stars as junior magician Harry Potter himself, before winning the role as his Muggle (human) cousin. Filming eventually took place over four frantic weeks at Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire in November last year.

The hardest part, says Harry, was the read-through with the entire cast and author J.K. Rowling herself. Admittedly, the pedigree of co-stars John Cleese, Dame Maggie Smith, Richard Harris, Robbie Coltrane and Alan Rickman to name but a few might have terrified more experienced actors. Harry, despite his age and relative inexperience, thrived alongside the other youngsters.

Having said that, Harry, who attends Hendon School in Golders Rise, Hendon, could well have acting in his genes, he admits.

While this is his first professional role, Harry was putting on shows for his family from the age of four. By five, he began drama classes at the Mill Hill-based Sue Nieto Theatre School and at nine joined the Millfield Theatre in Edmonton. "Trying to be someone else is fun," he says. With the film money invested to pay for drama school, the future looks bright.