Fan Focus: Leanna – November 6, 2011

Leanna from the United States

First off, how did you become a Harry Potter fan?

Book three had just come out, and I just heard about it, everyone had told me, I was in college at the time. Everyone told me it was the best thing since sliced bread, and I was hesitant to pick up on something that seemed to be all the rage. So I waited a little bit. Finally, I thought to myself, I am a writer, I love fantasy, why in the world am I holding out on this? I finally picked up the first two books and that was that. From page one, it was just an immediate obsession. What I found is that I kinda put my writing aside and it cracked open my love of writing in a way that I hadn’t gotten in touch with for a long time. Suddenly this cracked open all my creative impulses, as well as them becoming my favorite books of ALL time.

Deathly Hallows – Part 2!! Loved it? Hated it? Thoughts?

Here’s the thing with the movies… they are not the books. They are different entities, so I never went into the movie theater ever expecting to see the books directly translated. I have worked in theatrical adaptation, I’ve created scripts for things on stage and it’s going to have to change. I think the casting is brilliant and I think the acting is brilliant. They embodied the characters of the novels really beautifully, even if the story wasn’t portrayed exactly as in the books, at least the actors stayed true to the characters. That was a wonderful thing to see.

Now that all eight films are out, how to feel about the movie series as a whole? Favorite? Least favorite?

My least favorite is Order of the Phoenix movie. That was going to be a hard movie to make no matter what. Some of the choices they made were okay, some I was not okay with. My favorite is Deathly Hallows – Part 1 because I felt like there was a lot put in from the book. I really like how Harry’s hero journey was filmed. It was epic in the way that we wanted it to feel epic and I mean, I just wanted more Snape! They could’ve made seven movies about Severus Snape and that would’ve been fine with me. There is no better character for me in all books and in all films. “The Prince’s Tale” could’ve been two hours long and that would’ve been great.

If you could have one prop from any of the eight films, what would you choose and why?

Wow, great question! The spell books, with Snape’s handwriting.

We just got a sneak peek at the Harry Potter Studio Tour in London, which opens March 31, 2012. Do you plan on going, and if so, what are you excited to see?

OMG, I have to, have to, absolutely have to! Any excuse. I set my first books in England so I could go there for research, so I will absolutely be finding ways to get myself back to my favorite place on Earth to see those. I will make it happen.

Pottermore! Are you in? If so, tell us about your experience. If you’re not in, what are you looking forward to most?

Yes! Honestly, it’s kind of like with the films, I don’t really have expectations. I am just looking forward to seeing how things unfold. The more that we get, it’s like we have this rose and we keep peeling back these petals. For me, it’s just this gem that we are continuing to mine and it doesn’t matter to me what we find out, it is all fantastic.