So Ginny, Luna and Neville are leading a resistance against the Death Eaters’ tyranny at Hogwarts. What was that like to play?
It clearly takes courage. This is the thing those three characters step up to, beginning in the fifth film, with the Ministry of Magic and Dumbledore’s Army, and they really take on the responsibility. They’re the only ones left continuing this resistance.

Obviously Hogwarts becomes a completely different place, it becomes incredibly threatening and stands for everything it didn’t stand for before, such safety, and everything we had there is completely gone. Because we have new headmasters and all these new rules.

Are they going to succeed?
There’s an amazing scene in the second part, where obviously Harry, Ron and Hermione return to Hogwarts, and the other three have made this kind of hideout and haven, continuing Dumbledore’s Army in their own little way. I think that their dedication is pretty amazing, to keep that going, and I think that’s why people kind of love the three of those characters, really.

You’ve shot the Epilogue (note: this interview took place earlier this fall, before the reshoots were announced). Have you gone through an aging process?
Yes, it was a very bizarre thing to go through, really, to be able to have that chance to be suddenly made up to look mid-thirties. It’s was an exciting day but bizarre. Obviously, for me, it almost felt like a real cycle, because I started on that same platform, at the same age that Lily Potter, the youngest daughter of Ginny and Harry was, so it’s almost literally like looking back at myself.

How does it feel to have three kids?
The three kids who played the children were just… they just epitomised all of us, when we were that age, so it was lovely to look back. They were so excited on the day, it was a massive dream come true, and they’d been through such a massive process of auditioning. I think it was probably the most auditions any person has been through to get a part in a film.

In the auditioning process Dan and I sat down with different children and talked to them, because obviously the dynamic is incredibly important… to try and portray the idea that they are this family unit, that they’ve spent every living moment together, since they were babies in their hands to how they are now. It was challenging to get that warmth with someone you’ve barely met and some children don’t want to get close to someone they don’t know. But they understood it was incredibly important to make the scene work, so they were very giving to the situation.

It’s all going to end next year. How do you feel about it?
I remember starting in 2009 and being, “God, this is the last time we’re ever going to start back on a Harry Potter.” It was always at the back of your mind, that although you didn’t want to think about it too much, you knew that that ending was going to come and there’s a sense this was coming to the end. That actually made me kind of, “Right, I’ve got to experience everything, make every day amazing” and just take it all in because knowing that it wasn’t ever going to come around again was kind of bizarre.

You never think that day’s going to come, and then it does, and you’re like… damn, I don’t know, it’s bizarre. But I think luckily, with things like film, you’re burnt into celluloid, so if you want to watch it in ten years time, you can reflect back on it. But we haven’t yet finished, you know, we’ve still got the movies to hand over to the audience, so not until mid next year will it finally be finished.