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10 Fun Facts About 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone!'

Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

By Jonathan SimPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Recently, I wrote an article called "10 Fun Facts You Never Knew About 'Star Wars: A New Hope!'" And to keep up with my "10 Fun Facts" series, this is gonna be ten fun facts about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, both the book AND the movie.

1. The book and movie are called 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' everywhere except the United States.

This change was brought about because publishers believed American readers wouldn't be familiar with the term "Philosopher's Stone." This is why I, as an American, grew up reading it as "Sorcerer's Stone" instead.

In fact, when making the movie, there were two versions of the movie that were released. One version had the characters say "Philosopher's Stone" and the American version had the characters say "Sorcerer's Stone."

2. J.K. Rowling was offered the role of Lily Potter in the Mirror of Erised scene.

The author of the franchise, J.K. Rowling, was offered the role to play Lily during this scene. However, Rowling turned down the role because she didn't consider herself to be a good enough actress to pull it off, and believed that she would mess it up somehow.

3. Peeves was originally going to be in the film.

In the original script, Peeves the Poltergeist had a scene in the film, where he was portrayed by the late Rik Mayall. However, his scene was cut from the film and he wasn't included in the rest of the films, either.

However, when Mayall sent his family to go watch it, his children still believed that he played the part of Hagrid.

4. Harry was supposed to have green eyes like he did in the book.

It's well-known among Harry Potter fans that actor Daniel Radcliffe has blue eyes, instead of green, as his character has. They initially attempted to give Radcliffe green contact lenses, but Radcliffe had an allergic reaction to them, so the detail was dropped.

5. Hermione was also supposed to have especially large front teeth.

During the first scene they filmed of the movie (which was the last scene), they gave actress Emma Watson fake teeth in order to keep the detail of her character, who is supposed to have "rather large front teeth."

However, she had trouble speaking clearly in them, and director Chris Columbus decided to remove the teeth for the rest of Watson's scenes.

6. Rupert Grint had an...interesting audition

When Grint was ten, he auditioned for the role by submitting a video of himself dressed as a female drama teacher and rapping about how much he wanted the role.

The rap started off with something along the lines of, "Hello there, my name's Rupert Grint, and I hope you like this and don't think I stink."

7. Warwick Davis played quite a few roles in the film.

Davis not only played Professor Flitwick in the Charms scene, but he also played the goblin bank teller in Gringotts.

And, despite not physically portraying the role, he performed the voice of Griphook the goblin in the scene after this one.

8. It took the owls six months to learn how to hold letters in their beaks.

Seriously? I mean, I'd have just used CGI. And I don't even know why it took so long for them to learn how to hold something in their mouth. What I REALLY want to know is how they learned how to stay awake during the day.

9. The actors portraying students were instructed to do their actual schoolwork in the movie to make it look authentic.

And to think that I could have joined this movie and gotten PAID to do my schoolwork for once.

10. The book was rejected by publishers 12 times before being published.

Apparently, no one wanted anything to do with a book about a wizard and a stone. I'll bet none of those publishers had any idea Rowling would become a BILLIONAIRE writing these books.

And that's it!

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About the Creator

Jonathan Sim

Film critic. Lover of Pixar, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Back to the Future, and Lord of the Rings.

For business inquiries: [email protected]

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