“People are incredibly scary when they’re charming but you suspect they might suddenly do something very violent,” he continues. “If you sit across the table from someone who offers you a glass of wine and a present, but you know that he stabbed his wife to death, it’s quite unnerving.”
“Ralph is really frightening as Voldemort,” Newell confirms. “(You can see he’s mad, gone somewhere else in his eyes.) I’m nailed to the floor when he’s onscreen in this film.”
“It was a very intense experience,” Radcliffe says of filming his scenes with Fiennes. “I learned from watching him, the way he used his body and his hands, especially when Voldemort first regains his human form. It’s fantastic.”
“Daniel had to put up with a lot from me,” Fiennes says with a chuckle. “Here’s a boy who’s tied up with a man pushing his finger into the wound on his head, laughing and delighting in the pain he’s causing. He had to act as though he was in agony and terror without having many words to say. I was full of admiration for him.” Much consideration was given to the design of Voldemort’s look, as it’s the Dark Lord’s first appearance in full human form in the Harry Potter film series. “When Ralph joined the cast, David Heyman said to me, You’re gonna mess about with his face, aren’t you?” Newell recalls. “I said No, no. Ralph can play evil. He’ll dredge it up from the inside of his psyche. Then I went home over the weekend and thought, I really should mess about with his face.”
“My nieces and nephews were dying to come to the set and see Uncle Ralph as Voldemort,” Fiennes recalls, “but when they arrived they didn’t recognize me!”
Creature effects supervisor Nick Dudman and his team created the key concepts for Voldemort’s makeup, in which minimal prosthetics and transfers were used to cast a sickly, transluscent pallor to Fiennes’ skin and suggest a snarl of veins running down his skull, arms and hands.
“The makeup is quite simple and strong in its design,” notes Fiennes, whose head, arms and chest were shaved as part of the process. “I wanted to wear as little makeup as possible, to be free to move. The idea is that Voldemort has just gotten this new skin. He’s new in this body, so he’s testing it, relishing the power of it.” A light silk fabric was used to create Voldemort’s black flowing shroud, giving him the appearance of a “floating reptile,” as Fiennes describes his wardrobe. “When you see Voldemort in full figure, it’s as if he’s wearing this black, floating skin. And no shoes. It didn’t feel right that he would have shoes on. He’s just come out of a cauldron.”
“We wanted a costume that had a simplicity about it, something that isn’t as heavy as those worn by the professors,” adds Heyman. “It’s quite spare, not overly ornate, because he is anti-aesthetic. The Death Eaters may enjoy the jewels and finery, but not Voldemort.”
In post-production, the visual effects team digitally re-shaped Fiennes’ nose, flattening it and adding slits to evoke a serpentine look that underscores Voldemort’s Slytherin origins. “It’s really creepy,” Heyman says of Fiennes’ digital transformation, “but in a very subtle, disquieting way.”
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