For fans of Harry Potter, there may be no character from the wizarding world that conjures up as much enmity as Dolores Umbridge. The primary antagonist of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Umbridge was arguably an even more affecting than He Who Must Not Be Named, Lord Voldemort, himself.
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During her Ministry of Magic-mandated employment at Hogwarts, Umbridge rose from Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor to the headmistress. Once in charge of the school, she abused her power in practically every conceivable way, employing countless restrictions, attempting to dismantle Dumbledore’s Army, and subjecting Harry Potter to a torturous form of detention.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly’s Binge podcast, the actress who played Dolores Umbridge in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is making it clear that she doesn’t like the character any more than anyone else does.
“I don’t have to have sympathy at all, not in the slightest,” Imelda Staunton says. “I think she’s a bloody monster and to be played as such. I don’t need to understand what she does, but from a character point of view, she believes she’s doing the absolute best for that school. Yet again, I have embraced a completely and utterly deluded woman.”
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix director David Yates was vital in helping Staunton get a handle on Umbridge, and he did not mince words about her motives.
“He made it very clear to me and said, ‘Look, this woman is into ethnic cleansing,’ and that’s quite political,” Staunton remembers. “He said, ‘That’s what this is, the pure-bloods and all that.’ I thought, ‘Christ, of course, that’s what it is,’ so it became very serious. That’s when you go, ‘Right, I’m not just a lady in a very nice array of pink outfits. This is madness and cruelty dressed up.’”
Of course, even with the finest direction, getting into the head of such a monstrous character can be a challenge. “It’s fascinating to play because you want to get your head around it” Staunton explains, “but I want to make sure that I serve the purpose in the story and it was very difficult. I loved doing it, but I have to say, the most difficult scene to do, which did leave me feeling pretty bad for a couple days, was actually the scene where I make him do the lines and it happens in his hand.” Staunton is referring to Harry’s detention, in which he is forced to repeatedly scrawl “I must not tell lies” as the word are magically etched into the back of his hand. “That touched into something that you think, ‘Gosh, we’re all capable of great cruelty.’ It was a horrible, horrible feeling,”
And worst of all is that, like any good fictional villain, Umbridge believes herself to be the hero of the story. “She’s not sort of twirling her mustache and saying ‘Muahahaha,’ it’s the absolute and utter belief that actually it is going to help and that’s, of course, so much more frightening.”
David Yates returns to the world of Harry Potter to direct Fantastic Beasts and
Where to Find Them, opening Nov. 18.
