Alfonso Cuarón has admitted that he almost passed on directing Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban before Guillermo del Toro changed his mind—by calling him “an arrogant a*****e”.
Speaking in an interview marking the 20th anniversary of the 2004 film, the third in the Harry Potter series, Cuarón spoke about his initial bemusement when he was offered the job, especially since he wasn’t at all familiar with the Wizarding World.
“I was confused because it was completely not on my radar,” Cuarón told Total Film.
The Mexican filmmaker had just completed the 2001 Spanish-language erotic road trip drama Y tu mamá también, and revealed that he hadn’t either read J K Rowling’s books or watched the first two films.
Chris Columbus, who had helmed both 2001’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, had stepped aside when producer David Heyman offered the position to Cuarón.
“I speak often with Guillermo [del Toro], and a couple of days after, I said, ‘You know, they offered me this Harry Potter film, but it’s really weird they offer me this,’ said Cuarón.
“He said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, you said you haven’t read Harry Potter?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s for me.’ In very florid lexicon, in Spanish, he said, ‘You are an arrogant a*****,’” Cuarón recalled.
Cuarón has previously spoken about how Del Toro’s words convinced him to give Harry Potter a chance. In 2018, at the Telluride Film Festival, Cuarón gave an even more expansive description of the conversation between the two filmmakers.
“I said, ‘I’m going for ‘Harry Potter,’ can you believe it? And I even made fun of it. I hadn’t read the books or seen the films. And then he looks upset with me. He called me flaco, that means skinny [in English],” said Cuarón.
“He says, ‘F***in’ skinny, you’re such a f****n’ arrogant b******. You are going right now to the f***in’ bookshop and get the books and you’re going to read them and you call me right away,’” Cuarón continued.
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“When he talks to you like that, well, you have to go to the bookshop.”
Cuarón admitted that he realised what he might be giving up midway through reading Prisoner of Azkaban, and told Del Toro that.
“I called [Del Toro] and said, ‘Well the material’s really great.’ He says, “Well, you see you f***in,’ I mean, it’s just untranslatable from the Spanish.”
Heyman explained that while it may have seemed like an odd choice, it was Y tu mamá también that convinced him Cuarón was the right filmmaker for the third Harry Potter film.
“I’d seen Y tu mamá también, which I loved, and I oddly thought he’d be the perfect director for the third Potter,” Heyman said.
“That’s not what some might think. Can you imagine what some thought Harry, Ron and Hermione would get up to, having seen Y tu mamá también?”
“Y tu mamá was about the last moments of being a teenager, and Azkaban was about the first moments of being a teenager,” Heyman noted.
“I felt he could make the show feel, in a way, more contemporary. And just bring his cinematic wizardry.”
