'Dumbledore Said Calmly': One Harry Potter Actor Straight Up Refused to Read the Books
It explains a lot, actually.
The Harry Potter fandom will always (always) be divided into two groups: people who love the movies, and those who believe the films practically butchered the books. Clearly, no one asked that the movies follow the books word by word; but just one particular scene from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is already legendary in terms of how drastically the book version differs from the movie.
Yes, surely, we're talking about the "Dumbledore asked calmly" situation. When the Hogwarts headmaster storms into the room and practically shakes Harry in an attempt to find out whether he asked anybody to put his name in the Goblet of Fire, every book fan automatically rolls their eyes.
Well, there is a simple explanation to that. It turns out that Michael Gambon, the actor who portrayed Dumbledore starting from Prisoner of Azkaban, just refused to familiarize himself with the books.
Remember the Albus Dumbledore we received in the first two movies? Portrayed by Richard Harris, the headmaster was pretty much spot-on, and his calm demeanor satisfied every single book fan. However, after Harris died, he had to be replaced; and Michael Gambon decided to create his own version of the Hogwarts headmaster.
Don't get us wrong, he ended up giving us a pretty charismatic and energetic Dumbledore, but books fans are still pretty skeptical.
Before appearing in Prisoner of Azkaban, Gambon happened to have mentioned that he never read a single Harry Potter book; and boy did that cause a stir in the fandom! However, the actor couldn't care less.
After facing the backlash from Potterheads, Gambon reiterated that he saw "no point in reading the books because you’re playing with [screenwriter] Steve Kloves’s words.”
He might have a point, but pretty much every Harry Potter fan who loves the books still believes that Gambon's Dumbledore pretty much missed the mark. Well, maybe the upcoming reboot by HBO MAX will make sure their Dumbledore actor cares more about the source material.
Source: BuzzFeed