Tom Felton talks superfans and going incognito ahead of “superfan” documentary

Tom Felton’s (Draco Malfoy) directorial debut, Tom Felton Meets the Superfans, airs tonight on BBC Three at 9 p.m. GMT. Ahead of the show, Tom spoke on the UK morning show This Morning about why he made the documentary. Over the past few days a number of clips have been released from the program, which you can see here.

In the interview with This Morning, Tom said,

I always wondered what makes people want to wait outside hotels for people and dress up as their favourite characters.

You don’t get to explore why they do it, whether it’s a good thing or a weird thing.

He further talked about how he came up with his incognito disguise for the conventions he attended and how he felt in costume:

We went to a few; the first one was a bit of a fish out of water, plain clothes, stand out like a sore thumb. So the second attempt we went incognito; the outfit was five or six sizes too big.

It was odd; people were looking at my costume, but my instinct was people thinking, ‘Why is Malfoy dressed up as the joker?’

You can see a clip from the interview here:

In another interview with Newsbeat, Tom talked about the term “superfan” and its negative connotations:

Why is kicking a ball into a net any less weird than liking a fictitious wizard?

For things like sport or music, it’s considered cool to be a superfan, but as soon as it goes into Star Trek or My Little Pony or something a little bit obscure, it becomes a bit weird, and people are keen to look down on it.

He continued to say,

I wanted to find out what separates the passionate from the obsessive… people who wait outside hotel rooms and [who are] really into a certain project or music or whatever it is.

Tom Felton Meets the Superfans airs on BBC Three in the UK tonight (March 23).

Will you be watching? Let us know in the comments!