The scripts were written. The casting was complete. But day one of filming can’t be the first time that cast meets script. The filmmakers need to know that everything’s going to work when the camera starts rolling, and that it’s all sounding as it should. Which is why you need a table read. The clue’s in the name. You all sit down at the table, and you read the script out loud.
I’d been to table reads before, but nowhere near on this scale. It was more than a little daunting when I saw the size of the cast. We rocked up to a vast hangar at Leavesden Studios to find an enormous square of tables, twenty feet by twenty feet, and a crowd of adult actors, child actors and the children’s chaperones. We kids all said hello and hung out a bit, but much like my character I thought I was too cool for school. The chaperones were all asked to sit around the edges of the hangar, so while my mum settled down with a nice cup of tea, I took my place at this imposing table. I looked around and took in some of the people that would be part of my life for the next ten years. Daniel, Rupert and Emma I’d met, of course. It seems strange to say it now, but theirs were by no means the most famous faces in that hangar, not that I realised it at the time. Some of the most recognisable British actors of recent years were gathered in that space. Sir Richard Harris was at one end of the table, Dame Maggie Smith at another. Richard Griffiths, John Hurt, Julie Walters… I was surrounded by acting royalty, but I didn’t really know who many of them were. I was nervous, but if I had understood what kind of company I was keeping, I’d have been a hell of a lot more nervous.
There were exceptions. Along one side of the table was a serious-looking man with a familiar face and a distinguished nose. It was Alan Rickman and I was terrified, not because of the menace he exuded as Severus Snape, but because I loved the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and was obsessed with Alan’s performance as the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham. To be in the same room as the Sheriff himself was enough to penetrate even my veneer of schoolboy cockiness. Along another side of the table was a rather less serious-looking man with a comic sneer that makes me laugh to think about it even now. Rik Mayall was a hero to me and my brothers, especially Ash. We’d grown up watching The Young Ones and Bottom and Rik Mayall routinely had us on the floor. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell him I’d met “Rik with a silent P.” I might have been surrounded by dames and sirs, but it was Rik that I couldn’t believe I was in the room with.
In front of me was my script. I’d flicked through it, concentrating on my part, but hadn’t read the whole thing. In later films, the scripts were individually watermarked so if one of them leaked out, they would know whose it was. These were not watermarked, but that’s not to understate their importance. The script was gospel. Jo Rowling was rightly very protective over her stories and Steve Kloves, who adapted the books into screenplays, was on a fairly tight leash. Of course, he couldn’t include everything, otherwise the films would have been seven hours long. But once the script was approved, there was very little wiggle room to mess with it. That said, it was important to hear it out loud because only then can you identify bits that don’t work, or are too slow or too boring. And although I didn’t know it at the time, the table read can be a ruthless procedure for actors involved. If, on hearing it out loud, the filmmakers don’t like one person’s accent against another’s, or something just doesn’t sound right, they’ll think nothing of cutting or replacing the actor involved. It happened with Rik Mayall, although not at the table read. He played the part of Peeves, the mischievous poltergeist, and filmed all his scenes. You’d think that there couldn’t be a more perfect piece of casting, but for some reason or other his part was cut.
We went round the table introducing ourselves. Hi, I’m David Heyman and I’m one of the producers. Hi, I’m Daniel and I’m playing Harry Potter. I’m Richard and I’m playing Albus Dumbledore. I’m Tom and I’m playing Draco Malfoy. Robbie Coltrane and Emma Watson were sitting next to each other. When their turn came to introduce themselves they exchanged identities. I’m Robbie and I’m playing Hermione Granger. I’m Emma and I’m playing Rubeus Hagrid. I found it hilarious at the time—huge Robbie and tiny Emma swapping parts—and it was typical of Robbie Coltrane to ease any tension in the room with his brilliant sense of humour. He understood that you couldn’t have a room full of kids and try to take everything too seriously, and he had a knack of lightening the atmosphere.
Not that I wasn’t still nervous. The table read started. Everybody was brilliant. I could sense my first lines coming up, pages and pages in advance. I’d highlighted my dialogue and folded the pages it was on. I repeated the lines over to myself in my head. It’s true then, what they’re saying on the train. Harry Potter has come to Hogwarts. I had a sudden flashback to that moment, years before, when I played Tree Number One, forgot my line and waddled off in tears. Surely that wouldn’t happen now…
My moment came. I hurried through my line and all was fine. Most of my nervousness disappeared. Halfway through, we had a break. Rik Mayall jumped up and shrieked: “Race you to the toilets!” He sprinted off like a demented Pied Piper, with twenty kids running after him. Me first.
Making a film is a serious business. People have invested a lot of money in the project. They have skin in the game and they want to see that their investment is being properly handled. There were plenty of bigwigs at the table read that day, doing just that. But I had the sense, thanks to people like Robbie and Rik, that filming Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone would be a lot of fun. Would it be successful? Would there be any more films? That, I didn’t know. I didn’t even really think about it, to be honest. It was still just another film for me at the time. I didn’t expect it to be life-changing.
Far more exciting than the table read itself was the opportunity I had, at the end, to pluck up the courage and introduce myself to Rik Mayall. It was Ash’s birthday coming up and Mum had his card in her handbag, which I timidly asked him to sign. Very kindly, he obliged. To my absolute and lasting delight, he scrawled: “Happy Birthday Ash, Love Rik Mayall, XXX on the bum!” Then he danced off, Peeves-like, to entertain some other kids.
My mum looked at the card, shook her head and frowned. “I really don’t know about that, Tom,” she said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
“Relax, Mum,” I told her. “It’s a joke.” I tucked the card away like it was treasure. And it was treasure. My brothers weren’t remotely impressed by my sideline as an actor, but a kiss on the bum from Rik Mayall was worth its weight in gold.