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THE MAGIC IN THE MAKING

or

JAMES BLOND AND THE GINGER WHISKER

My first on-screen enemy was a Potter, but not Harry. It was the nefarious lawyer Ocious P. Potter in the big-screen adaptation of the classic children’s book The Borrowers. It’s the story of a family of thumb-sized people living with—and hiding from—the life-sized “human beans.” The youngest of the family is a cheeky little chap called Peagreen, for whom a cheeky little child actor was required. Enter nine-year-old Tom. I was, it’s fair to say, a naughty fellow. If a whoopee cushion had found its way onto the teacher’s chair, or they’d been locked out of their own classroom, there was a reasonable chance that I was involved in some way. I was young enough at the time for this to be cute and disarming—that wouldn’t last for long—and it meant that I was well suited to the part of Peagreen.

I’ve only the sketchiest memories of auditioning for the part, though I do remember reading with the wonderful Flora Newbigin, who had already been cast as my older sister Arrietty, to see if the chemistry was right. A much clearer memory is of the joy of being released from school in order to go to rehearsals and filming. This was a different level of activity to the commercials I’d done previously. For those jobs, I’d simply be told where to stand and where to look. My input was minimal. The Borrowers was a real acting gig. Not only did I have a proper part to play, I also had stunts to do and so, during the pre-production period, my mum would pick me up from school at one o’clock every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We had a driver called Jim, and our first stop would be to the local fish and chip shop. I’d choose a jumbo sausage and chips, which I’d eat in the car on the way to stunt training, with my mum furiously apologising all the way to Jim for stinking out his car with my lunch.

Those afternoon sessions took place in a vast gym where Olympic athletes trained. At the time I was all about James Bond, and I was a little disappointed that my stunt training didn’t involve throwing myself from a moving car with a Walther PPK. It was fun, though. And compared to algebra classes, it was a dream come true. We learned basic gymnastics, we learned how to climb ropes using your legs rather than your hands, we learned how to fall from a height without shattering your ankles, we learned how to swing the hoops, jump on the mats and balance on the gymnastics beams. I was relatively physically able—hardly captain of the football team but decent enough with a cricket bat in hand—and so the stunt training wasn’t too much of a physical challenge. My Peagreen-like cheekiness, however, presented more of a problem. I was walking along a beam one afternoon and decided it would be a very cool move to jump off the beam and land with my feet on either side. From up there, where I was standing, the levels looked about right and I didn’t want to squander this opportunity to show off without people looking. So I shouted at everyone to stop what they were doing and watch me. They all turned to look. I gave them my best Billy Elliot pose, leaped into the air and parted my legs ready for my triumphant landing…

Perhaps you can see where this story is heading? Suffice to say that my toes didn’t hit the ground and my fall was broken by another, more sensitive part of my anatomy. The moment of impact was agonising and embarrassing in equal measure. My eyes water just to recall it. No doubt they watered then, too, but I remember doing my very best to keep it cool as a horrified silence fell over the gym and I shuffled off the beam, pretended that my stunt had gone exactly as I intended, and ran off to double over in private agony and nurse my wounded pride and my wounded… well, I’ll leave that to your imagination.

My pride would take another hit when the time came for the hair and make-up team to turn me into Peagreen. I can measure my childhood acting career by unusual haircuts. Long before Draco’s bleached locks became a permanent feature of my life, I proudly sported Peagreen’s quite ridiculous hairdo, a huge mass of orange curls—think Krusty the Clown, but ginger. If you think that’s unappealing, you haven’t heard the half of it. My wig only reached from the front of my hairline to the crown. This meant that the back of my head was entirely exposed. The only solution was to dye the back of it ginger, and perm it so that it curled. The net result was a tightly coiled orange mullet.

Reader, I ask you to contain yourself.

I was a keen footballer at the time. A life-sized cutout of Steve McManaman adorned my Borrowers dressing room, and like every self-respecting nine-year-old boy I collected football stickers. My heart’s dearest desire was to move from the B team to the A team of my local football club, but because of filming, I missed a lot of practice sessions. When I could make it, I used to overcompensate to show them that I was worthy of the team. But it’s difficult to look tough on the football pitch when you’re sporting a curly orange mullet behind straight blond hair. Even our coach took the piss. “You nearly had it by a hair’s length, boys,” he told us after we’d narrowly lost a game. “Or in Tom’s case, a ginger whisker.” Everybody burst out laughing, including him. I saw the funny side and smiled sheepishly but alas, promotion to the A team eluded me.

I had no real sense as a kid that spending time on a film set was anything out of the ordinary. More than once I had to beg my mum to let me finish a game of footy when she was hassling me to get in the car and go to the studio. That said, filming The Borrowers was a pretty cool way to spend time as a kid. I loved getting kitted out in my wardrobe—dress a nine-year-old in an oversized sock and paperclip with a pair of thimbles as shoes and you’re pretty much giving him the ultimate dress-up party. It certainly far surpassed my Snowman Number Three costume. More than that, though, I loved the set. There was a certain amount of green-screen visual effects work, but that technology was in its infancy and in order to establish the tininess of the Borrowers, everything on set had to be blown up to the most ridiculous scale. I spent my days strapped to harnesses, running along the insides of walls while enormous hammers smashed down at me. It was like being in my very own video game. For one scene, I had to be trapped inside a milk bottle as high as a bus is long, which they filled up with a thick, stinky white liquid to approximate milk. It was a huge stunt that we spent days on. For another, I had to hold on to a pole thirty feet in the air before falling onto a huge crash mat. Nowadays, I’d be a terrified mess before trying a stunt like that. Back then, I insisted on doing it several times—just to ensure my performance was up to scratch, you understand. Can a kid have much more fun than that? I’m not sure how.

But perhaps even more exciting than filming inside my own personal Super Mario world was that we were based at Shepperton Studios. And what else should be filming there at the same time but the new James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies. This, for me, was a Very Big Deal. I changed the name on my dressing room from “Peagreen” to “The Next James Bond” and I was stoked that some of the stunt crew from GoldenEye were working with me on The Borrowers. Shepperton is a series of massive empty warehouses where they build whatever sets they need. To go from A to B you take a little electric golf buggy. It’s a blast because on any given day you might drive past a fully made-up pirate eating a sandwich, or an alien having a sneaky cigarette. For me it was extra thrilling because there would routinely be several James Bonds milling around the studios. They were stunt doubles and stand-ins in their sharp suits and dark wigs, but from the back they were Bond, and that was good enough for me. But just once, sitting in the back of the buggy as we trundled across the studios, I did a double take. The Bond we had just passed was no stunt double. It was Pierce Brosnan himself, the real deal. We didn’t exchange any words. I don’t think we even exchanged a glance. All the same, that was one of the most exciting moments of my life so far. And while my friends weren’t that interested in my life on set, my brush with Bond was a pretty cool story to tell.

Of course, The Borrowers had its own cast of heavyweights, not that I was old enough to realise it at the time. John Goodman was a prestigious actor with a commanding presence. I remember one day running around the hair and make-up rooms with a Super Soaker water gun, and I burst like Bond into one of the rooms, full of giggles and trouble, where John was quietly having his make-up done. He silenced me with a single, stern look in the mirror. A look that said: let’s not screw around here, kid. It was enough to make me dash out again, no word spoken. My mum was particularly thrilled to meet my on-screen mother, Celia Imrie, one of her personal heroes because of her work with Victoria Wood. Mum’s excitement rubbed off on me, but really I had no idea who she was. All I know is that she was instrumental in creating a relaxed atmosphere on set so that we kids didn’t feel in any way under pressure. As soon as you shout at a child on set, chances are they won’t be coming out of their shell any time soon. Celia’s fun, motherly nature made sure that didn’t happen.

And although I didn’t know it at the time, I was to have my first introduction to the Harry Potter family. Jim Broadbent, who played my dad, would go on to play the bumbling Professor Slughorn. Jim was a lovely guy through and through: a great sense of humour, quietly spoken but brilliant at funny voices, and always supportive to us kids. I would also meet Mark Williams, who went on to play Arthur Weasley. He was playful—childish almost—and though we didn’t film any scenes together, he was a lot of fun to be around. I definitely don’t think he would have disapproved of me jumping in with a Super Soaker. He’d have been more likely to join in. Thanks to the disarming, relaxing presence of Celia, Jim and Mark, I never thought of taking anything too seriously.

They say you learn best when you’re having fun. Almost without realising it, I started to do just that. I suppose, being surrounded by actors of a certain stature, it was inevitable that I should start to absorb something about the art of performance, and there’s no doubt that The Borrowers required more of me than the commercials that preceded it. What I really remember learning, though, was the nitty-gritty technical business of how a film set works. It was basic stuff, but it would serve me well in my future career. I learned to put myself into the position of the camera operator, so if they told me to look camera left, I would have to look to my right. I learned to pay attention to the tiny chalk marks on the floor that told me where I could walk up to without forcing the focus puller to shift focus. Most importantly, I learned that when you hear those magic words “Roll cameras,” and the accelerating click of the film spool rotating, everyone on set has to be on the ball. In those days we were shooting on 35mm film, so every minute of shooting time was costing thousands of pounds.

Not that I was always a model of professionalism and restraint. When the teacher tells a certain kind of child to be quiet it can ignite a spark of naughtiness, and I probably had more of that particular spark than most. I had a tendency to dissolve into fits of laughter just before the camera rolled: everyone shouting “Quiet!” was enough to set me off. In general, the adults took this in their stride. However, on one occasion I did receive the most restrained of bollockings. The director, Peter Hewitt—a thoroughly pleasant and patient chap—came up to me. To this day I can recall the look on his face: the pained expression of a man under immense pressure, with the clock ticking and camera film running out, having to find a way to coax a giggling nine-year-old out of his hysterics and into filming mode. Picture it.

We had a deal. I could tell I was being told off in the nicest possible way. The camera started rolling and I managed to pull myself together.

I wouldn’t have had half as much fun, though, if it had been all adults. I remember being massively influenced by Flora. She was a few years older than me, but always a laugh and a pleasure to be around. Even though this was her first major film she definitely knew her way around the set and she held my hand, literally and metaphorically. She made sure I was standing on my mark, and my dodgy-looking wig wasn’t askew. Thanks to her I had a brilliant time on The Borrowers. So much so that I cried when it was all over.

We had just wrapped the film. It was six o’clock in the evening and I was sitting in the make-up chair for the last time so that the make-up lady could cut out my orange perm. All of a sudden I felt overwhelmed with a confusing torrent of emotions that I couldn’t understand. Tears welled in my eyes, but let’s be honest, the future James Bond needs to be tough enough to keep his feelings in check. So I devised a cunning plan. I pretended that the poor make-up lady had nicked me with her scissors and howled, “Ow! You got me!”

Alas, my cunning plan was more Baldrick than Blackadder. She hadn’t got me. She hadn’t even been near me and she told me so. But for the next hour I used my imaginary wound as an excuse for the tears that wouldn’t stop.

I didn’t appreciate it in that moment, but my tears were teaching me another important lesson. An audience can go back and watch a film any number of times they want. It’s always there for them. For the cast and crew, the relationship with a film is more complex. The magic is in the making, and that process is a discreet unit of time in the past. You can reflect on that unit of time, you can be proud of it, but you can’t revisit it. If shooting The Borrowers had been like living in my own personal Super Mario game, reaching the end was like coming to a checkpoint. I could look back, but I knew I’d never live that part of my life again. In the years to come, that feeling would return at the end of every shoot. For months, you’ve been a travelling circus act. You’ve been a tight-knit community. You’ve travelled to a dozen different cities. You’ve broken bread together. You’ve acted together. You’ve messed up together and got it right together. You’ve left your home and your families, you’ve bundled up together in a hotel miles away, and while it’s not always jokes and laughter, you develop a certain bond and intimacy. And then, suddenly, it’s over, and this community that has been your surrogate family dissipates to the four corners of the earth. It doesn’t exist anymore. We almost always say the same thing: that we’ll be in touch, that we’ll hook up next week, that we’ll relive the old times, and no doubt we mean it sincerely. Occasionally it does even happen. We all know, though, deep down, that we’ve reached the checkpoint. Whatever your experience on the film, good or bad, a moment in time that was special and unique has passed and we can never get it back. In the years to come I learned that this would not get any easier, especially on a project the size of Harry Potter.

The nine-year-old Tom could only fumble at the edges of these emotions. The nine-year-old Tom knew nothing of the passing of time. He was more interested in getting back to the football pitch or the carp lake than analysing his feelings in any depth. But as he sat in that make-up chair having his ginger mullet cut away, perhaps he sensed for the first time the loss of something precious.

It was a taste of things to come, because the thirty-something Tom still bawls his eyes out every time a job comes to an end.