Harry Potter Star Opens Up About Why it is Hard for Him to Watch the Movies

Actors that are tied to landmark movies and characters often have it tied to them for the rest of their lives. Audiences around the world carry their love for those characters when they see them in another project, 'That's not so-and-so the actor, that's Their Character.' The cast of Harry Potter has certainly had that in spades, but not just the main trio from the eight films but even their co-stars that grew up alongside them and appeared in all the other movies. Among them, Matthew Lewis who played Neville Longbottom in all of the films and in a new interview revealed why he finds it difficult to rewatch the movies, hint, it has something to do with those blurred lines between actor and character.

"I find it quite difficult when too much of me starts to come through in a character. It's easier when I can play someone completely different, like a police officer in London or someone who's wealthy," Lewis told The New York Times. "At times it's painful how much of me there is in Neville. When I'm watching, I'm like, 'That's not Neville; that's you.'" Lewis went on to say that he still loves what he did in the films and his association wit the the franchise, adding,"If there's something people remember you by, there are worse things than the Harry Potter franchise," he said. "It opened so many doors for me when I otherwise wouldn't even have gotten in the room."

Lewis can currently be seen on the PBS series All Creatures Great and Small, playing a character quite different from old Neville. It wasn't necessarily a conscious decision," he told the outlet. "I've just been lucky that those are the roles I was offered."

For the time being the Harry Potter franchise's future is firmly in the court of the Fantastic Beasts series. The third in the planned five movie series is currently filming with Warner Bros. making headlines last year after they elected to part ways with actor Johnny Depp who had been playing the part of evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald. Hannibal star Mads Mikkelsen has already been tapped to play the part moving forward. Fantastic Beasts 3 is no scheduled to open in theaters on July 15, 2022, and it seems unlikely that Lewis or any of his Harry Potter co-stars will appear in future installments.

The eight Harry Potter movies aren't streaming anywhere for the first time in a while, but are part of the rotating content that appears on HBO Max from time to time.

(H/T Cinema Blend)