How Alfonso Cuarón Used Harry Potter to Train His Hands
The Mexican filmmaker explains that he agreed to direct The Prisoner of Azkaban to practice working with special effects for Children of Men.
We’ve been waiting for his return to the cinema for six years. And we’re going to have to wait even longer since Alfonso Cuaron will first return to television with Disclaimera prestige series for Apple TV+, this fall.
Guest of the Locarno Film Festival these days, the Mexican director delivered a masterclass in which he returned to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanhis first Hollywood hit. Alfonso Cuaron confided (via Variety) that he seriously hesitated to accept this project, far from his usual universe, darker and more dangerous. But he was seduced after reading the book: “I thought it was great“, he assures, emphasizing Rowling’s writing, which knew how to tell the story of the passage from childhood to adolescence in a social context of classes, more than a simple story of magic: “I love the world that she (Rowling) created because it’s so grounded in humanity. It was a joy to make this film.”
Above all, Alfonso Cuaron reveals that experience Harry Potter was very valuable to him for his future projects. He saw the Warner Bros. blockbuster as a good way to get his hands dirty with a big special effects machine, with a view to his upcoming films: “I knew that to do The Sons of MenI was going to need visual effects. Except I didn’t know anything about them. So I thought, okay, I don’t know anything about special effects. This movie (Harry Potter 3) will be a kind of kindergarten to learn!”
The skills acquired on The Prisoner of Azkaban subsequently influenced his work on the dystopian thriller and then on his space drama Gravity.
Disclaimer will be released on October 11 on Apple TV+.
