Fandango is doing a fun promotion right now for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. If you buy tickets from Fandango, you’ll get a free iTunes download of a song from the HBP soundtrack, “Friends and Love”. Once you’ve purchased your tickets, you’ll receive an email from Fandango with the iTunes download code. The offer is good through July 27 and your download code is good through September 4.

Whoo hoo! Just got this in my inbox, it’s the official countdown doohickey for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with a news ticker, photo gallery, and videos.

Grab it!

There’s a new interview with Daniel Radcliffe in the New Zealand Herald; he talks about the darkness of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the division of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, working with Michael Gambon, his kissing scene with Bonnie Wright, the evolution of Harry Potter, and how he knows exactly what he wants to do with his life. PHEW! It’s a long interview, but well worth the read. Here’s the bit about working with Michael Gambon:

“I’ve always loved working with Mike, but I’d never had any big, in-depth scenes with him. It was exciting, knowing we were going to get a good run at those scenes. For the first four months it was just me and him, which was great. Actually when the rest of the cast finally came along, I thought, ‘I don’t like this’. I’d gotten so used to it being just me and Mike, who by the way is one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with, and probably the least professional. Which makes him an absolute joy to be around.

“He takes nothing seriously, is always having a laugh, yet somehow seems to turn it on the moment the cameras start rolling. Because of our lengthy time together it meant we had the chance to build up a great relationship off camera and hopefully that translated on to the screen.”

There’s a great new interview and photos of Tom Felton in a Mexican magazine that I can’t figure out the name of; you can see the scanned in images here. Here’s a snippet from the interview:

Tom enjoys the rise of his character: “It’s the first movie in which I intervene from start to end. You kind of feel sorry for Draco because he’s just a kid, and his father is in prison now, and he has this inner struggle because of the task he has to achieve. And this time he shows more vulnerability. Not only does he call Harry and idiot, he actually breaks his nose.

“Filming that scene was very fun. Daniel was lying on the floor and I had my foot on his face, without touching him, really. Twice I felt tempted to touching his face, but poor thing, I didn’t do it”.

HA! Oh, man, that would’ve been fun to see!

Image: Bauer-Griffin

Esquire UK has just put up their August edition with Daniel Radcliffe on the cover and one photo from the article; they’re very old Hollywood-looking - be sure to check it out!

Want to know how Quidditch REALLY feels like to play? Here’s what Rupert Grint has to say about the magical game:

“You’re on a broom for a long time, like a few hours at a go,” Grint grinned. “You’re literally sitting on a broom and it gets a little bit sore down under a bit. It’s been fun, but it’s quite hard work.”

Um, yeah - I kind of always wondered how that would feel after a while - and now we know!

Image: Bauer-Griffin

Here are two brand spankin’ new clips from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In this first clip, you’ll see the Death Eaters attacking the Burrow. Harry and Ginny both jump through the flames to chase after Bellatrix Lestrange, who is chanting “I killed Sirius Black!”. A Death Eater traps Ginny, and Tonks and Pops Weasley jump in beside her and Harry. Watch:

In this second clip, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are talking about the Half-Blood Prince’s book. Harry doesn’t want Hermione to look at it, and Ginny grabs it from him as he walks by.

Hbp Book Scene - The top video clips of the week are here

There is a brand new interview with Daniel Radcliffe in Empire magazine in which he talks about his role in Harry Potter but also his other past and upcoming projects. Oh, and he goes off on a few fun little rabbit trails, too. Here’s a few excerpts:

Funny Dumbledore quip

There’s a moment moment, who knows if it will stay in the film, where we’re discussing the Felix Felicis potion, which gives you perfect luck, and I say to Dumbledore, “Have you ever taken Felix Felicis?” and he says, “Only recreationally”

On his favorite actors

Gary Oldman, he’s great. Other people would be Imelda Staunton and David Yates. They’ve all been very inspirational to me. But I have to single Gary out because of his focus and desire and just the ease with which he acts. He can just do it. I think it bores him slightly how easily it comes to him. I think he and Daniel Day-Lewis are the best actors of their generation.

On the Hair

DR: I will never do that again. I hated that. That Goblet of Fire hairdo kind of came about by accident. We were all told not to cut our hair over the summer and then Mike Newell came in and said, “Oh, that’s fine.” Was Rupert’s hair long then?
EMPIRE: Very long.
DR: Yes, we both had really long hair. But Mike Newell just said, “Oh yes, that’s wonderfull”. So we were stuck with it. Awful.

On bringing back Dobby

We haven’t had Dobby in the movies since, I think, the second. So we’ve now got to re-establish a character and then have it mean something when he does. So we need time to do that. Maybe I should have a line when he pops up: “Dobby! I haven’t seen you since 2003!”

On his co-stars Emma and Rupert

Me and Emma have had our row, which you will with anybody you spend so much time with. The only reason Rupert and I have probably never argued is that he’s the most totally laidback person you’ll ever meet. You could probably set fire to him and he wouldn’t really mind. We’ve been very lucky to get on so well for so many years. It’ll be very sad when it’s all over.

LOL! Oh, man, he’s hilarious. I love reading DanRad interviews, don’t you?

iTunes has just premiered an exclusive new clip from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The video is introduced by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint. In this video, you’ll see new footage of Harry and Dumbledore talking before apparating out of Hogwarts (A HA! Yep, somebody finally did it), Harry and Dumbledore landing on a rock before the cave where Voldemort hid the Horcrux, and then a bit of exploration of the cave - Dumbledore has to cut his hand in order to open the door. The clip is not in embedded form, but you can watch it via iTunes or YouTube:

YouTube video

iTunes

Here’s a behind the scenes look at Emma Watson’s Elle photoshoot; she also gave a VERY long interview, I’ll just put a few excerpts here:

On her obsession with Gossip Girl:

“I’m obsessed with Gossip Girl. It’s so wrong that Nate and Blair are getting back together. Blair is definitely the more interesting character. If I were going to play either of them [Blair or Serena], I would play Blair. I love watching America’s Next Top Model too. My flatmate, Sophie, is in the British version of the series- it make it extra tame(?). My other guilty pleasure is Twilight (noooooooo Emma noooooooo), I love those books. My friend and I read them back to back. This is so sad, but I literally felt depressed when I finished reading them because I thought, “Oh my God, what am I going to do now?”

On her Chanel connection:

“Before the fourth (fifth?) premiere, I’d just signed up for the model agency Storm, and they called me to say. ‘Chanel would love to lend you clothes.’ I was so excited.”

On attending fashion shows:

“There was a really great energy about the London shows and I felt so much more comfortable there. I literally got the Tube, walked from the Tube station to the venue with my stepmum and then walked straight to my seat. In Paris, as soon as I got out of my car I was hounded, I couldn’t even walk. In London I felt like I was there to see the clothes, but in Paris…I just didn’t realize how full-on it was going to be, I don’t think I’d ever do that again.

And here’s the video: