Jim Broadbent – British national treasure, cuddly monkey and astonishingly good actor – has been telling those lovely Dark Horizons people all about his role in the sixth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, which began filming on Monday.
Broadbent will play Horace Slughorn, a new character in the Potterverse who becomes Hogwarts’ new Potions teacher. “He’s quite a comic character,” said Broadbent. “He’s a retired teacher of magic who's drawn back out of retirement because he’s got some secrets they need in the battle against the Deatheaters and he’s quite starstruck as a teacher and he's drawn back into the fold because he likes to notch up celebrity students, and he's drawn back by Harry.”
Frankly, it’s about time that this happened. Broadbent is one of the few great British actors who hadn’t appeared in either a Potter, a Rings or a Star Wars, and with only two Potter novels left to be filmed, time and opportunity was running out. He’s a great fit for the slimy Slughorn.
Broadbent also told Dark Horizons a little tidbit about his role in Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. “I’m Indiana's academic colleague at Yale. I’m his friend and colleague,” he revealed, which indicates that he may be the replacement for the late, great Denholm Elliott’s Marcus Brody - although we would imagine Broadbent is playing an all-new character.
To read more of Dark Horizons’ interview with Broadbent, go here. It’s only fair, after all, even if we have already used all the best bits.