SnitchSeeker sat down with director of the latter four Harry Potter films, David Yates, in Orlando this past weekend, where the topic of Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and some of its significant scenes, reshoots, alternative sequences, were discussed. Yates opened up about the opening sequence for the finale involving Snape, and why he chose that, as well as the now-famous hug between Lord Voldemort and Draco Malfoy in the Hogwarts courtyard, Neville Longbottom's speech at the end, and the epilogue shoot at King's Cross and reshoost at Leavesden Studios. That can be read below; also note that Yates confirmed a couple of projects he has lined up in new interviews, including a new adaptation of a Doctor Who film, and a possible project with Emma Watson in mind.

SnitchSeeker: Is this your first time here [at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter]?
David Yates: Mmhmm.

SnitchSeeker: How does the theme park compare to Leavesden, in terms of sets?
Yates: It’s cleaner. You can eat the sweets because they’re real. It’s impressive, actually. It’s really impressive. They’ve done a really good job. I know Stuart Craig contributed to the whole design process. They’re obviously very clever, the people who build these things, but I can see Stuart’s hand everywhere, and they’ve been very faithful to the designs. Quite honestly, it’s a bit surreal.

I walked around those places and I my brain was doing this weird thing where it was saying, “Oh, this is a film set. No it’s not a film set. All these people are here having fun and they’re going on these rides, but this is work. This is work, how can they …?” So it was a really weird experience for the first hour, and then we went on one of the rides – The Forbidden [Journey] ride – and it was really fun. My wife, unfortunately, I think she stopped the ride though ‘cause she didn’t realize that shoes might come off. As the cart went off, her legs immediately went up in the air and she said, “Grab my shoes! Grab my shoes!” I was grabbing one and my friend was grabbing the other, and then the guys monitoring were thinking, “What’s that crazy lady doing? (laughs) Who are those people?” I like it. I think they’ve done a really tasteful job. It’s impressive.

SnitchSeeker: I watched the Maximum Movie Mode the other day. How does it compare to a regular behind-the-scenes feature? What’s the advantage?
Yates: I suppose it’s the sense of the interactiveness with the movie. That’s one of the charms of it, I think. One wonders if that can be taken to another level. But I think that’s the idea behind it – some kind of interactive element with the movie as it’s rolling.

SnitchSeeker: In the beginning of the Maximum Movie Mode you mentioned that the script was changed, that the beginning wasn’t supposed to start with Snape. What was it supposed to start with, and why the change?
Yates: I wanted to put Snape right in the forefront of the movie ‘cause it felt to me that the original script … actually I’m not quite sure how the original started. We saw Hogwarts. We flew in. It was surrounded by Dementors. We crashed into the title. But Snape didn’t feature. He’s such an iconic part of that last story; the notion of him being the first thing you saw felt very important to me because Alan [Rickman] is not in the movie for very long. It’s really weird and yet so …

SnitchSeeker: Significant.
Yates: Yeah. It’s like, somehow, the revelation of him and who’s side he is on and everything. There’s something Alan does with his face that is so haunting. It’s ‘cause he’s thinking certain thoughts but not showing anything, and the camera picks up that energy. And also I’d opened a couple of the movies with wham-bam. We blew up a bridge in Half-Blood Prince. I wanted to open the movie in a really quiet, hard way. I thought it’d be quite interesting.

SnitchSeeker: There’s this one unintentionally funny scene in Deathly Hallows...
Yates: Oh, go for it.

SnitchSeeker: The hug between Voldemort and Draco?
Yates: Oh yeah, no you’re right. We were really shocked. In fact, we saw that in the test screening. We were sat there and, yeah, some people found it … it depends which country you’re in. So it’s culturally specific. Americans found it amusing, though, which kind of freaked us out ‘cause it was like, “Whoa!” It’s that slightly awkward way that Ralph [Fiennes] holds him.

SnitchSeeker: How did that come about?
Yates: That’s Ralph. I went through this notion that Voldemort doesn’t do touchy-feely. He can’t because he’s a prince of all evil (laughs). So that’s his attempt to be touchy-feely. We left it in actually, and we knew that some Americans found it amusing but we were comfortable because that’s where it played. So that’s cool.

SnitchSeeker: Did you laugh?
Yates: No, I didn’t. I just found it intriguing. So we cope with that. It’s fine.

SnitchSeeker: Speaking of the Malfoys, I know there were three different endings filmed for them. One included a possible death for Lucius - I heard he got trampled. The ending that was chosen in the film - why that and not the others?
Yates: We’ve loads of footage of Jason getting trampled, but every time I cut to it, it felt like we were spending too long on the Malfoy story when you really wanted to be with Harry and Voldemort. That’s where you wanted to be. Actually he would never have gotten killed, he just got trampled. He was never dead. He was always alive. The intention was always to end it with him running away across the viaducts. So I’m not sure where that story comes from for the alternatives.

SnitchSeeker: I think it was Jason [Isaacs] and Tom [Felton]. They mentioned there were several endings.
Yates: Well, it’s true. They’re right in the sense that we could’ve ended it in two or three different ways. We could’ve just seen Jason being trampled, not knowing what happened to him. Oh yes, actually no, they’re right. There was also a moment where Tom … we had this scene. In this scene where Tom throws Harry a wand, which is a big deal – a hugely different ending. It’s not a different ending, it’s a different moment. And we thought, “Oh my god, is that too much of a turnaround for Malfoy?” So Malfoy suddenly becomes a good guy – so that’s what Steve [Kloves, screenwriter] wrote.

Actually it felt really uplifting and you went, “Oh cool.” But when we put it all together, I think [producers] David Heyman – and David Barron in particular – were concerned about it because they didn’t feel it was most effective for the character, where Steve and I were quite keen because we thought, “That’s a really uplifting moment.” But we cut it out eventually and it worked really well. So that’s the alternative ending. I think that’s what they meant.

SnitchSeeker: Neville's speech – was that in the original script? Because it’s not in the books, so how did it add to that scene against Voldemort in the courtyard?
Yates: It’s Neville’s Henry V moment. Neville’s opportunity to talk about the fact that they had something that they were fighting for other than just … you know, Voldemort is a character who just inspires terror in people. That’s why everyone likes it when they don’t think he can beat Harry. They don’t stay out of loyalty, they stay out of fear. And Neville expresses the fact that they’re all there because they care for each other and they support each other out of love. That’s what his speech is about, basically. And, again, we developed that to express that point. And I like a good speech (laughs).

SnitchSeeker: Rupert [Grint] mentioned there was a lot more dialogue in the original epilogue.
Yates: There was. It was a little closer to the book. In the original epilogue they talked about the professors at school. It was very much what was in the book. But it didn’t work ‘cause it felt very expositional, and it felt kind of clunky. So we pared it down so it was literally about saying goodbye to your kids at the railway station. And when you say goodbye to your kids at the railway station, it feels like it’s meaningful. Whereas when you talk about this character or that character, it just felt a little less eloquent.

SnitchSeeker: When did you realize when you shot the original epilogue that it didn’t look right – make up-wise – and you decided to go back and reshoot it? When did that decision come about?
Yates: As we were editing it. About the same week we were shooting it. My editor first of all said, “David I’m not sure about this?” And I said, “No, it’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be great.” And about a week later I started to put it together with Mark [Day, editor]. The Davids were great because they weren’t sure. My big problem, really, was the young kids. They’re really young kids. I was at Kings Cross station and you shout direction at these kids, and that’s no way to get performances out of younger cast members. I wanted them to be really lovely and special. So actually it was a perfect storm with everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

The make-up just wasn’t quite right because we tried too hard with it. We tried to make them look too old. The performances of the younger kids wasn’t quite right. The scene is written a little bit expositional. We’d shot it very quickly on location ‘cause it was noisy and we had to get in and out quickly so I couldn’t use nice crane shots that sort of developed. It was all very rigid. So everything that could go wrong, had gone wrong, which was good in a way because there was absolutely nothing redeeming about the scene whatsoever (laughs) and it was good to end eight movies.

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Order the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 DVD and Blu-ray sets, out today in the U.S. and December 2 in the UK, at the Amazon links below, or through the official Warner Bros Shop.

Amazon.com (US) - Deathly Hallows 1-disc DVD | Deathly Hallows 1-disc Blu-ray | Deathly Hallows 3-disc Blu-ray triple play | The Complete 8-Film Collection DVD | The Complete 8-Film Collection Blu-ray

Amazon.co.uk (UK) - Deathly Hallows 1-disc DVD | Deathly Hallows 3-disc 3D Blu-ray | Deathly Hallows 3-disc Blu-ray triple play | Deathly Hallows 2-disc DVD | The Complete 8-Film Collection DVD | The Complete 8-Film Collection Blu-ray | The Complete 8-Film Collection BD limited edition