There is a method to Moody’s madness, though his irreverent brand of tough love often terrifies his students and draws criticism from his peers. “What appealed to me about the character,” says Gleeson thoughtfully, “is that he reminds me of some of my old teachers. He has no time for book learning or pussy-footing about. He wants to show these young men and women what they’re up against – evil exists and they better know what they’re getting themselves into. He’s a one-man initiation ceremony, a walking rite-of-passage. He doesn’t believe in treading lightly with Harry or the other students because that won’t prepare them for the real world.” “Moody is a complex, challenging character,” Heyman observes. “Brendan brought a great balance of ferociousness and humor to the role that makes him both formidable and lovable.”
“You seldom find an actor of Brendan’s depth and calibre,” adds Newell, who previously worked with Gleeson on the 1992 family adventure Into the West. “Perhaps it’s true of all Irishmen, but Brendan has an elemental quality to him that is part savage and part wide-eyed innocent, which suited him well in playing this multifaceted character.”
Moody’s piercing blue mechanical eye was created for the production by creature effects supervisor Nick Dudman and visual effects supervisor Jimmy Mitchell. “The eye became a character in itself,” Newell says, “although to reveal exactly how we created it would spoil the illusion for audiences.”
Costume designer Jany Temime was inspired by spaghetti westerns when she created Moody’s signature black coat, a battered hunk of leather and buckles that appears as world-weary as its owner. “Moody is a warrior. The man has no house, no home. He literally lives in his coat,” Temime surmises. “We had a team of people who spent a week aging and distressing the coat to give it a lifetime’s worth of wear.”
As Moody attempts to protect Harry from the mysterious forces threatening his life, the teenager must contend with a hostile force of a different kind: muckraking reporter Rita Skeeter. As unscrupulous as she is intense, Skeeter will stop at nothing and stoop to anything for her outrageous gossip columns
“Rita writes what people want to hear or what she thinks will keep them reading,” says internationally acclaimed actress Miranda Richardson, whose diverse film credits include The Hours, Sleepy Hollow, Enchanted April and Mike Newell’s hit 1985 thriller Dance With a Stranger. “She’ll do whatever it takes to get the story she’s already pre-written in her head. Whenever the danger is heightened, she gets more excited. The idea of imminent death or potential injury makes great press. And that really makes her tick.”
“Rita is calculating and tough, but she oozes charm – that’s how she gets the scoop,” Newell explains. “Miranda is such a gifted actress. She has a wonderful sense of comic timing, and at the same time she’s able to portray a delicious menace.”
Skeeter fans the flames of the Harry Potter backlash that erupts in the wake of his dubious selection for the Triwizard Tournament, and delves deeply into his personal life – and Hermione’s. “She’s absolutely horrible!” Emma Watson exclaims. “Rita seems to have it in for Hermione. She highlights the insecurities Hermione harbors about herself, like being a bookworm or the teacher’s pet, much as Professor Trelawney did in the third film.”
Movie Database
In Theaters
