Transcribed by Marissa Osman
Sophie Reid: What’s it like to be back at the studios again?
Mark Williams: I come back regularly, but this is new! This is extraordinary. That is the real locomotive. Twenty-five tones of it. It was born in Swindon, it lived in Wales, and it was retired to the Barry's Scrapyard, was rescued, and now it's here. It's a real Welsh dragon, that is. [laughs]
Sophie: That's amazing.
Mark: Yeah. There's nothing quite like having the real thing, which is a lot of what the Studio Tour's about, as you know.
Sophie: Do you have a favorite memory from set?
Mark: I don't really do favorites; I've got lots of things I enjoyed, and every single set has got great memories. The Great Hall makes me think about the wife killing Bellatrix, which is a good memory. Some of the flying I always thoroughly enjoyed, and some of the sets on the backlot that you don't see anymore were always enjoyable when we were all rambling around and going to the World Cup and stuff.
Sophie: Which prop would you have liked to take home with you?
Mark: I think most people would have liked to [have] taken their wand.
Sophie: Did you take any props home?
Mark: No, no, no. Garry Standby Props cantered everything out and cantered it back in. No chance.
Sophie: If you could have played any of the other characters in the series, which would you have liked to play?
Mark: Well, Bellatrix, I always say. Because it's the diametrically opposite character. [Helens Bonham Carter] always seemed to have so much fun as an actress.
Sophie: Which character do you identify with the most?
Mark: Mine. It would be a bit of a tragedy if I didn't identify with him. Somebody asked me earlier if there was a character that I didn't have a scene with that I would like to have done, and it came to me. I never had a scene with Robbie. I think a scene between Mr. Weasley and Hagrid could have been really good.
Sophie: As a series, Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling inspired a lot of kids to read. Was there a book that really inspired you?
Mark: I read anything; I read the back of a cornflakes packet. I'd be hard put to say that - and that's a really good question; I'm sorry I don't have a better answer - I can't think of one. I just seemed to snowball into reading, and I just read anything I could. Maybe Dr. Seuss. Is it "1,001 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" or whatever? I seem to remember it hitting me and going, "Oh, wow, I can read this!"
Sophie: You’ve recently been hosting the quiz show The Link. Do you enjoy hosting the show, as opposed to acting?
Mark: It's great because I don't have to learn any lines, which sounds very lazy, but also, you get to meet different people all the time, so that's been really interesting.
Sophie: Will you be making more Father Brown?
Mark: Yeah, we're making another [season] of Father Brown this year. 2015. So we're keeping going with that.
Sophie: What are you working on at the moment?
Mark: I'm doing a sitcom pilot called "Mum," which is my brother's own production team we made, just the two of us, which is really exciting. And a couple of other films.
