Bonnie Wright knows the Harry Potter movies didn’t do Ginny justice
Bonnie Wright admits to being "disappointed" Ginny Weasley didn't get much screen time in the Harry Potter movies
Aux News Ginny
If you had to choose the most underserved character in the Harry Potter film franchise, Ginny Weasley is a top contender, and Bonnie Wright—the actor who played her—knows it. As Book Ginny evolved into a character with at least some semblance of a personality while Movie Ginny remained essentially one dimensional, Wright felt “anxiety” about doing justice to a role fans felt passionate about. “[Especially] when, inevitably, a lot of the scenes of every character were chopped down from the book to the film,” she notes on the latest episode of Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast. “So you didn’t really have as much to show in the film.”
“Sometimes that was a little disappointing, because there were parts of the character that just didn’t get to come through because there weren’t the scenes to do that,” Wright continues. “That made me feel a bit anxious or just frustrated, I guess.”
Wright never brought up these frustrations with producers, probably because she was a very young woman in the middle of a gargantuan production, and also because “There was no room for much change in those scripts.” Still, she felt anxiety “about, ‘Oh, I’m going to be seen as badly portraying this character,” she says. Later, she realized “that I wasn’t really given the opportunity to do that. So it wasn’t really my fault, exactly.”
The Harry Potter franchise had a unique commitment to retaining its principal cast from the very beginning through to the end, which more or less paid off with the “Golden Trio” of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint. In Wright’s case, she was cast at age nine before anyone ever knew that her character was Harry Potter’s future bride. (Her only line in Sorcerer’s Stone was given to her by director Christopher Columbus on the day of shooting.) Wright didn’t grow up to have… well… any chemistry with Radcliffe, but whether you blame that on a fault in her acting or a lack of screen time to develop the relationship is up to you.
Wright says most fans don’t tend to blame her for it. “When fans do share that disappointment… they do it in a way that is like, ‘We know it wasn’t you. We just wanted more of you.’ And that’s the same of every character. If only they could be five-hour-long movies.” Well, if that Harry Potter television series does indeed materialize at Max, maybe Ginny will finally get her day in the sun.
69 Comments
Man, even in the books Ginny is barely a character. You really feel Rowling go “and Harry fell and love and lived happily every after with oh…let’s say Ginny.”
I know I’m mixing up episodes here, but you could imply that when the phoenix saves Harry and Ginny from the Chamber Of Secrets, it’s kinda like when Moe grabs Homer out of the boxing ring with that balloon.
Point of order, it was a powered paraglider, not a balloon.
Motherfuck. Ok, its fine, I’ve already came clean on being hazy on the the whole things.
I’ll put it down to your doctor wailing on you with a surgical 2×4. (Also, didn’t see any other replies in the chain, sorry!)
What’s happened has happened.
She’s like an idea for a character, one whose personality and traits are told to us rather than shown.
And also, whenever she’s not around everyone keeps asking “Where’s Ginny?”
… or wondering when they’ll finally get to the fireworks factory.
Even this seems like way more thought than was actually put into any of it.
100% agreed. It’s like Rowling was thinking, “I’ve got to find a way to make Harry a part of the Weasley family,” and that’s what she came up with.I actually like Bonnie Wright a lot as a person and actor, and I wholly believe that her lack of chemistry with Daniel Radcliffe was just wunnem thangs that happens in Hollywood so often. But I also think that even if she had had more scenes, Ginny wasn’t enough of a character on her own and was too much of a narrative device to really make the relationship resonate.
Rowling after the books are finished:
You want the Mr. Plow who plows driveways
The House Elves got more narrative time than Ginny. I see what she was doing there but maybe it could have been a book of its own.
This tracks from what I remember from the books, that Ginny was more prominent without being anything close to a main character. Her ending up with Harry was probably conceived as a clean way to provide familial bonds between the main three, even though I think Rowling stated after the fact that Harry and Hermione really should have ended up together.That said… the chemistry with Bonnie Wright and Daniel Radcliffe was awful. Every scene looked like two kids who heard the other was a piece of shit and had to sit at a table together and pretend to like each other for three hours. It’s easy to blame Wright because Radcliffe demonstrated great chemistry with the other leads so it seems like the issue is not on his end. And I am not even saying Wright is a bad actress (as she pointed out, she was given nothing to work with). But the two of them together was unfortunately a net negative.
I always thought she did a good job of communicating puppy love that grew into the real thing. I think any lack of chemistry was exactly what’s suggested in the article, that they just didn’t have enough screen time together to develop the type of relationships he had with the main characters his age. And the mere idea that anyone would consider this the fault of a child actor is plain silly.
Yeah, to be clear I don’t blame Wright for this at all. I agree with the article – lack of screen time, a reduced character, etc. Also, sometimes good actors just can’t convey a sense of closeness for whatever reason and that happened here.
Not to mention the last four novels (where she was relevant) are 700+ page phone books. No way all that makes it on-screen.
Rowling was wrong with what she wrote, and she was wrong with her hypothetical. In both the books and the movies, Harry had the best chemistry with Luna. THAT’S who he should’ve ended up with.
Harry and Luna make sense from the movie point of view but I disagree with you from the Novel side of things.
Harry didn’t end up with Luna because whatever chemistry was in the books was purely accidental. I certainly saw them as the best match, as well, but it’s also clear that JKR has nothing but disdain for anyone who doesn’t toe a strict line of normalcy. From the way everyone acts like Hermione is just a busy-body for wanting to abolish slavery to their treatment of Luna, I question why anyone liked the supposed heroes of these books at all.
Luna was so good in the movies, and had such chemistry with Harry, that the producers should’ve gone against canon and paired them off at the end.
Luna also had negative chemistry with Harry in the movies and it was no better in the books. Luna fans self-insert then proclaim she’s perfect for him, but that does not make it anywhere near accurate.
I felt the same way for a long time, but then Luna just seems so distant and uninterested in love-relationships. Somewhat asexual and fairy-like. Harry needed someone with some practical sense, given that his childhood was nothing but trauma and chaos, and who knows how that might have emerged in the future. At least he didn’t hook up with Hermione.
Thank you, I’ve been saying this forever. Probably just the stigma against “weirdos” prevented her from making this obvious choice. Especially better than pairing her with Neville or Newt Scamander’s grandson
#teamluna. Hell yeah.
“Harry and Hermione really should have ended up together.”Fuck no. I am continually stunned at how little JKR seems to understand about her own creations.
Right? Harry was Hermione’s best friend. They are an all-too-rare example of genuine platonic love between friends of opposite genders. Sticking them together would have been trite and disappointing.
Or, hell, maybe Harry didn’t even have to end up with someone he met in high school.
Most humans get married to someone they met in their late teens/early twenties, so that’s actually one of the least stupid things JKR has come up with.
Now if we wanted something really likely, the finale should have indicated that Harry lived in a studio flat where he got to see his kids every other weekend and Ginny was living comfortably on half his inheritance with a very nice graduate of Beauxbatons.
Harry should have ended up with someone he hooked up with at PotionCon 2010.
It feeds into the annoying-ass trope that if two people of the opposite sex are emotionally or even just physically close in any way, they should be kissing.
I long ago gave up being stunned by anything JKR does. Basically the Nickleback of YA, if Chad Kroeger was also a Nazi-adjacent piece of shit.
All of JKR’s post-revisions like Harry and Hermoine, not explicitly revealing Dumbledore’s sexuality in the initial books, stating Draco was actually sired by that giant spider…all just point to a lack of conviction in her stories. There’s something about it that I have an incredibly difficult time respecting. If only that were her biggest publicly-facing flaw.
Draco was actually sired by that giant spider
It’s in the John Peters revision
Wait, that kid’s dad was a giant spider? What the hell!?
Sorry she didn’t say that. Seeings how there was probably two or three seconds where you believed me helps my point though.
It wouldn’t be the strangest but of retroactive cannon to plopped from her gob if it was something she said, but thank you for clearing that up. Point taken.
Yeah, Draco’s father is actualy Dobby.
Mrs. Malfoy should have given him the gift of a french letter
I had to google “was Draco sired by the giant spider” because it sounds exactly like something that post-Potter Rowling would say.
I suppose there’s still time (shudders)!
“It’s easy to blame Wright because Radcliffe demonstrated great chemistry with the other leads so it seems like the issue is not on his end.”
Why would anyone blame the actor and not the producers for casting someone who doesn’t have chemistry with the lead?
I definitely felt the chemistry. She seemed the ‘dominant’ one in the relationship? I think Harry was smitten with her confidence.
“Wright never brought up these frustrations with producers, probably because she was a very young woman in the middle of a gargantuan production, and also because the movies are about Harry Potter, not Ginny fucking Weasley.”
There. Fixed that.
I can’t imagine why anyone would blame the actor for this. Weird. I’ve read all of the books and have to admit that I don’t recall much more about the character than I saw on the screen. But one thing I can say is that, of all the characters, Ginny presented as the strongest, most sensible and dignified person in the novel. You could see her vulnerability too. It was easy falling in love with her character. Idk, maybe sometimes less is more.
I don’t think anyone should be expecting anything anywhere close to “justice” from that entire franchise.
Ginny was a peripheral character, like a lot of the Weasleys were (remember Percy? He’s at school with them too!) If anything, it was weird Rowling kept trying to force something between Harry and someone like that over the course of the books. As for the movies, they can only service so many characters in the time they have. It really is up to the actors to make the most with what they’ve got. In many franchises, we’ve seen people who stood out, get their roles increased because they made an impression. (In this very series, book stuff that belonged to Ron started being given to Hermione because Emma Watson was so damn good.) It’s natural to go easy on Bonnie because she was just a kid, but they were all kids. She and Daniel just didn’t have the chemistry. It may be harsh to say, but I’m certain if she was better, she would have seen her screentime increased.Why are we playing softball?
I remember something about Steve Kloves openly saying he didn’t like Ron and deliberately moved several of his biggest heroic bits onto Hermione, his favorite character. Yeah, the fans weren’t happy with that one.
There are a lot of reasons why the Harry/Ginny relationship didn’t work on screen, but I think an underappreciated one is the fact that it’s supposed to be set up over the course of Chamber of Secrets, which gets by far the worst film adaptation of the whole series. The movie goes through a greatest-hits collection of the most important plot points of the book, while completely throwing out the character beats that are supposed to underlie those plot points—so in this case you get the part where Ginny gets possessed by Tom Riddle’s diary but not the part where it happens because she’s so discombobulated by her first childhood crush that she lays out all her wishes and fears for a malevolent entity that uses them to manipulate her. In other word, the very movie that was supposed to establish the confusing intensity of Ginny’s feelings for Harry just makes her look like the random victim of an evil plot. So it’s no wonder that the thing the filmmakers did not even attempt to get across to the audience did not in fact come across to the audience.
Who was her first childhood crush?
My major recollection is that the fans hated Ginny in the books, endlessly slut-shaming her and insisting Harry should have hooked up with Hermione instead. Boy, so much about this series was a red flag in hindsight.
but they loved cho, right? :{
The fandom was a dumpster fire twenty five years ago and has never improved.
#1: podcasts are not a great thing to happen to actors. Producers and studio heads are jerks and like a lot of bosses don’t think their employees have the right to opinions. Somebody like Ms. Wright who doesn’t have a huge career goes on this to talk about a part she’s well known for, makes sensible criticisms, they are widely reported on and she likely works less. It used to be a running joke how the AV Club random roles were often so milquetoast (“this one was great” “this one was real great” “this one had great people” I think I might remember Paul Rudd’s being particularly anodyne)…because people want to keep working. She doesn’t have any credits since 2018 so maybe she left acting…but the point stands generally.#2: she’s right. There wasn’t room for anybody but Hermione in the films. I know that every male and female characters who are friends shouldn’t hook up, but it always did make more sense, and certainly Hermione and Ron never made any sense at all. By what some people are saying maybe it made more sense in the books and I forgot, but in the movies the part where he just abandons H and H seemed like a good opportunity to just fix it. Anyway, she’s right, she never got a chance.
The strange thing is, on paper, Ginny has a lot in common with Harry. Two things off the top of my head; they both are great at Quidditch and both know what it’s like to be possessed by Voldemort. And she’s gotten to know him through years of being a family friend and classmate.
The problem is that Harry’s attraction to Ginny comes right the fuck out of nowhere and doesn’t have any decent set-up. They don’t share a ton of scenes together (even after Harry saves her life in Chamber of Secrets) or meaningful conversations. Harry’s just like, “I like Ginny now.” It’s tell, don’t show.
JK has a lot of flaws as a writer that I overlooked when I was younger, and one of the big ones is that she can’t write romance to save her life. All of her couples feel arbitrarily put together. I think she was trying to go for a Sam and Diane thing with Ron and Hermione, but it sailed past romantic comedy and just made you think, “You two need counseling.”
Though disappointing, that isn’t unusual. There are quite a few writers (and screenwriters) who can’t “do” romance. Chris Nolan is bad at it, for example. In addition to everything else people have said about Joss Whedon, I believe he admitted to asking others to write the ‘love’ narratives. Maybe we just expect more from a woman author.
Maybe, cliched as that sounds. But then again, some of the most monstrously sexist romances I’ve ever seen were written by female authors.
Personally, I think it brings up the bigger question as to why every story needs to have romance. After a certain point, it’s like checking off a box instead of an integral part of the story.
Yeah, I don’t need romance in every narrative but I have to admit, if it were missing I’d probably wonder when it would appear. We’ve been fairly conditioned.
I’d say a story needs a certain amount of sex appeal, certainly. But that doesn’t necessarily have to include romance. Harry and Ginny could’ve just had fun being teens who are dating instead of making this out like it was the most epic romance ever when it wasn’t.
I agree. But, you know, an author has to sell books and Rowling was rejected 12 times before Bloomsbury accepted the books. They started out a children’s books, of course, but I figure Rowling expected her fanbase to grow up with the books so there was going to be that point where adolescents start feeling a certain way and there you go. It would be nice if writers could stand by there principles because I get the feeling that Rowling would agree with both of us and just not write romance. She chose a masculine POV for her novels and she’s pretty good at fight scenes. I actually get the feeling that writing about sex and love make her uncomfortable?
You know who Radcliffe does have great chemistry with? Geraldine Viswanathan. I just finished watching the latest season of ‘Miracle Workers’ and those two have such wholesome, goofy couple vibes.
Actor disappointed by size of her role!Another searing expose´ by the crack journalistic team at the AV Club!
No offense and I’m sure she’s a lovely person but I would say Bonnie Wright didn’t do justice to the character (which is obviously more of a casting complaint)
and, perhaps an unpopular opinion, but they were perfectly in their right to recast after say the third movie when it was clear she was going to be a much more important character
You could blame the filmmakers to a point, but it’s really JK Rowling who doesn’t do any of her characters justice. She is another author/maker who is decent at world-building, but cannot populate those worlds with many interesting characters or relationships (think George Lucas with Star Wars, Frank Herbert after Children of Dune). The only characters in the Harry Potter universe that get growth are male: Harry. Neville. Ron (a little). Hermione doesn’t actually grow. She’s a member of the trio who is talented and a know-it-all in book 1 and is the same in book 7.