Mementos from the time spent on a set like the Harry Potter franchise are as valuable as the films themselves. There’s always going to be a temptation to take an item or two when production wraps, but in the case of franchise star Matthew Lewis, he has quite a few items from his time playing the loyal and brave Neville Longbottom. And in the case of the prized possession he stole from the grand finale Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, there was some devious smuggling involved in lifting it from set.
Matthew Lewis recently appeared on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, and it was here that he talked about his Harry Potter prop collection. While he doesn’t have any of those infamously breakable wands in his collection, Matthew Lewis does have a comprehensive slate of items from his tenure in the series. The centerpiece of his collection is Neville's costume from the Battle of Hogwarts, which he obtained through the following scene right out of a spy movie:
I’ve got my entire costume from the final movie. I won’t say who did it because they might be able to figure it out. But someone came into my dressing room at the end of the day, on the last day, and was like, ‘Do you want this?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘Put it in your bag right now, and I will leave the room.’ And I said, ‘OK.’ So I guess I stole that.
On top of his costume from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Matthew Lewis also has some of those false teeth that every cast member had made up, fake ears from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and a chunk of the maze from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. While those aren’t exactly Time Turners or Goblets of Fire, those are still pretty personal items to hang onto from a set where literally nothing was allowed to be taken. But nothing beats that final costume heist that Lewis pulled off.
Even he knows it, as you can hear in how Matthew Lewis relishes in the details of his grand theft. Like any good thief, Lewis is remaining mum on who helped him make off with his magical threads. THIS leaves him able to tell other neat stories about these unique bragging rights when it comes to visiting any sort of Harry Potter exhibit:
So I’ve got that, which is cool because when you go to the museum, and they have the one there and they say, ‘Oh, that’s the one he wore in the film.’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s not because I’ve got it.’
Not everybody gets to flex like that, and that’s an even rarer humblebrag than actually getting to star in the Harry Potter series. Since Matthew Lewis has both, there’s truly a case to be made for Neville Longbottom being the real chosen one in the story. Or, at the very least, there’s a chance that on-set security might keep a better eye on his dressing room when it comes to future projects. Then again, it’s not that easy to catch a master thief like Lewis, who probably has a couple tricks up his sleeve yet to be discovered.
