Tom Felton became a star through his role as the scheming, ice-blond student Draco Malfoy in the “Harry Potter” series, also known as the arch-rival of the “Boy Who Lived” (Daniel Radcliffe).
Now the former Harry Potter actor has revealed that, despite his fame in the popular fantasy series, playing the role of the “evil” character didn’t exactly make his dating life at school any easier.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, he said: “Some people really struggle with the idea that I wasn’t this special, popular kid, but I was running around with dyed hair and playing an evil wizard. That wasn’t cool. That didn’t go down well with the girls.”
The actor, who made his West End debut last week in “2:22 A Ghost Story” at the Criterion Theatre in London, has appeared in all eight Harry Potter films based on novels by JK Rowling.
Regarding his role as the villain Malfoy, he told the news agency: “I guess I got the part because I was laid back and had no idea what people were talking about.”
“Wizards in cupboards under the stairs? And with three older brothers, you learn quickly to be confident. I think Chris Columbus, the headmaster, recognized this slight disinterest and arrogance in me and thought it might work for Malfoy.”
He continued, “I didn’t have to write 10 pages of dialogue when I auditioned. I just had to show up as a snotty kid who looked good and I got the part.”
Regarding his character’s appearance in Harry Potter, Felton previously told People: “If you ask me if I’m going to dye my hair blonde again to be Draco, I bloody well would.”
“Either (him or his father, Lucius). I’ll play Draco’s child if you really want! I’d gladly take any chance to be a Malfoy again.”
Felton may not have had much luck with girls at school, but he certainly made an impression on his Potter co-star Emma Watson.
The 32-year-old actor, who played Hermione Granger in the eight-film franchise, recalled “falling in love” with Felton, according to the Daily Mail.
Watson, who was 11 when the first Harry Potter film premiered, remembered Felton: “I walked into the room where we were having tutoring. The task was to draw what you think God looks like, and Tom had drawn a girl with her cap on backwards on a skateboard.”
“And I just don’t know how to say it – I just fell in love with him. I would come in every day and look for his number on the call sheet, it was number seven, and if his name was on the call sheet, it was a particularly exciting day. He was three years older than me and to him it was like, ‘You’re like my little sister.'”
While Watson insisted that her crush was unrequited, Felton said in the same interview that he was aware of her feelings.
“I think I was sitting in the hair and makeup chair and someone said something like, ‘Yeah, she had a crush on you,'” he recalled. “I became very protective of her. Yeah, I always had a soft spot for her and that’s still the case today. There was always like, I don’t know, a kinship.”
In 2011, Watson told Seventeen that Felton was “my first crush.”
She said: “We talked about it – we still laugh about it. We’re really good friends now and that’s cool.”
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