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Harry Potter star Fiona Shaw says the world 'felt emptier' when Dame Maggie Smith died

Fiona Shaw thought the world 'felt emptier' when Dame Maggie Smith died

Fiona Shaw thought the world "felt emptier" when Dame Maggie Smith died.

The 66-year-old actress appeared alongside the late screen legend - who passed away in September at the age of 89 - in the 'Harry Potter' film series and has now remembered her late co-star for her sense of humour.

She told The Times: "I miss Maggie Smith a lot. She was hilarious. She came down one morning [on set] and said, 'I have to go back to bed. I can’t stand the colour of that carpet.'

"The weird thing was, she meant it. When some people leave the planet you feel it is emptier for a moment. Maggie is one of those. I was very sad when I heard."

Meanwhile, the 'Bad Sisters' star - who played Petunia Dursley in the adaptations of J.K. Rowling's magical book series whilst Dame Maggie starred as Hogwarts deputy headmistress Professor McGonagall - lost her brother Peter when he died in a car accident at the age of just 18, and explained that she is "talking about him a lot" now that she is making regular trips back to her native Ireland.

She said: "He should be here now and he isn’t. It was a terrible thing to happen. I wasn’t living at home; that was hard. I went back for the funeral and then had to return to England to rehearse.

"It was very disassociating. One morning I went for a walk in Stratford at 6am and I thought I saw him. I saw this blond head walking along by the river and I was sure it was him. I read sometime later that this does happen. That’s the magical thinking of loss. I’m visiting Ireland a lot because my mother’s very old and my brothers are often there. We have been talking about him a lot."

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