Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard
Tom Felton
This memoir reflects the author’s life faithfully rendered to the best of his ability.
These words appear above the copyright in the front matter of Tom Felton's Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard. Having just finished the book, I believe them. That doesn't mean I believe everything the book says is correct or true, only that I believe Felton has done his best to make them so. This despite his being an actor, that is, a person whose job description literally is, "I pretend to be someone I'm not." If he's acting a part in this book, he fooled me, too.
Felton appears to be a genuinely nice guy. He's also, he would like you to know, normal. He grew up in a loving family, and although he became a successful child actor, he was never fanatic about it. Acting was something he did, not who he was. He would claim that he was never especially talented, but I think we can dismiss that.
After a Foreword by Emma Watson, the book consists, I would say, of three parts. The first part covers the first 12 years of his life -- his becoming a child actor and acting in movies like The Borrowers and Anna and the King. From there we segue to his audition at the age of 12 for the role of Harry Potter -- obviously, he didn't get it, but he was called back to play Draco Malfoy. The second part of the book describes making the Harry Potter movies. This section of the book is mostly a tour through his coworkers, illustrious and less illustrious. He has something nice to say about each of them. Most of his stories about the adult actors and film-makers who shared his childhood describe kindnesses they did to him. The third part is his life after Harry Potter, including his difficulties with alcoholism and depression.
Felton contrasts his experience making the Potter films with that of the three principles Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger). Draco Malfoy is an important character in the Potter franchise, but not a central one. The films WERE Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson's whole lives during the years of their making. Felton, in contrast, was only needed roughly every other month. When not needed he could live with his family and go to the ordinary public school.
He argues that these doses of normality insulated him from the damage such an acting career could do to a child. In this respect he feels that he got off more lightly than Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson. Emma Watson, in particular, as the only girl, was under a great deal of pressure.
This story didn't quite convince me, because it was evident to me from the trajectory of his life after the Potter films that he had been badly hurt, in subtle but still important ways. Since I'm largely oblivious to celebrity gossip, I don't know if the same could be said of Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson.
I also found it hard to identify with the "normal" life he describes between his work on the films. His "normal" school life felt as alien to me as the "normal" kids in my high school did. This contrasts with his description of the making of the films. I know little of film-making and have never been involved with one in any way other than watching the final product. But he describes an environment in which a team of talented and capable people work together under high pressure to produce something great. That, to me, is a VERY familiar environment.
"Normal" is not one thing. Your normal and my normal are not the same.
The upshot, then, is that Beyond the Wand didn't quite work for me in the way I think Felton intended it to. I have read some other reviews, and no one else had this problem. So, I'm sorry, Beyond the Wand -- it's not you, it's me. (Does anyone ever believe that?)
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