Accio, fake teeth! Here's something that may not be at the front of your mind when you're watching a film starring several children. Those kids are not only growing rapidly, they are losing teeth along the way. Apparently Harry Potter director Chris Columbus and fellow filmmakers compensated for this by getting prop teeth made for the young stars of the first films. Here's the explanation, via Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe and his Miracle Workers co-star Karan Soni:
Karan Soni: When they were doing the earlier movies, because their teeth were falling out, they would had a cast made of all their teeth. So that if one fell out, they could have a prop tooth put in. Just so they could keep filming.Daniel Radcliffe: Cause you've got a set full of twenty 10-year-olds, so they would cast everyone's mouths.
Yeah, you don't want a close-up of, say, Ron Weasley smiling, and suddenly you notice young actor Rupert Grint is missing a tooth that he had in the previous scene.
We already knew that Emma Watson wore fake teeth as Hermione Granger in one scene of the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, because Hermione is said to have an overbite in J.K. Rowling's books. But they stopped having her do that after that one scene. It's strange to picture a whole lineup of kids having casts made of their teeth, but they must've kept some dentists busy those years. (Maybe it was Hermione's parents?)
The topic came up when THR was talking to the cast of the upcoming TV show Miracle Workers at Sundance. Karan Soni had mentioned that he grew up thinking he would be cast as Harry Potter. He was asked what he had learned about the wizarding world from working with Daniel Radcliffe. That's when the prop teeth story came out.
Some fans may have already known that story, and maybe they also heard about the theory behind Harry Potter's scar shape. It's doubtful they already heard about the Hogwarts plumbing situation before it was described by Pottermore, but maybe they already figured that was the case.
Harry Potter fans are always still learning little details about the show, long after J.K. Rowling published her books and Daniel Radcliffe and company finished filming the movies. Radcliffe has tried to move on from Potter -- including with this new show -- and he said kids don't even recognize him as Harry Potter anymore. But he and Rupert Grint and Emma Watson will always be asked about the Harry Potter series every time they want to promote a new project.
Daniel Radcliffe's Miracle Workers, co-starring Steve Buscemi as God -- yes, typecast again -- premieres February 12 on TBS. On the film front, the Harry Potter world continues with the prequel series Fantastic Beasts. Warner Bros. just pushed back production on Fantastic Beasts 3, but that movie should still be able to arrive in theaters in 2020 or 2021. Keep up with everything arriving on the big screen this year in our handy 2019 movie schedule.
