DRACO MALFOY

TOM FELTON, HARRY POTTER FRANCHISE (2001–2011)

Three words sum up the cause of Draco’s malevolence towards Harry Potter, according to the man who knows him best. “Piss-poor parenting,” laughs Tom Felton when Buff catches up with him, citing nurture vs nature as the reason behind the snobbish wizard’s persecution of The Boy Who Lived.

“I think Draco very much is a product of his environment,” he continues. “He’s got a very aggressive father with a massive ego who believes that by looking down on people, you’ll feel bigger. It’s the only way he’s ever really known.”

Movie bullies are often the yin to the hero’s yang, representing the negative qualities counter to the antagonist. Felton agrees. “I often think about Harry and Draco as two sides of a coin,” he says. “One has great friends and good influences around him even though he doesn’t have a family or any money or status. Whereas Draco suffered at the hands of his dad’s crap parenting.”

Unusually for this type of character, who we often only see at a single specific point of time in their lives, audiences followed Draco’s – and Felton’s – journey through adolescence from snippy child to Death Eater across eight films. But there was no set plan for the evolution of the character. “We were never given the information about what was going to happen,” he says. “Obviously, the characters are expertly crafted and Draco has his journey, but the books came out one at a time, so at the beginning, it was very much just play the snotty kid and be as horrible as you can: ‘Draco sneers in the corner… Draco

looks on cruelly… Draco and the gang laugh at Potter…’ I got pretty good at doing that sort of stuff over the first few years.”

As the role and character’s importance grew, so did the audience’s response. “After the first, at one of the first premieres I was hurled some abuse by one of the young audience members,” Felton recalls. “I forget what they said, but it was a reminder that getting somewhat of a backlash from the public is a sign of good villainous work.”

Does Felton have his own favourite movie bully? “I like Rufio from Hook. He bullies and picks on Peter and then it all comes full circle and they work together. It’s like Harry and Draco joined forces.”

Keen to share more on the character and his career with the world, Felton has penned a memoir. Beyond The Wand: The Magic And Mayhem Of Growing Up A Wizard is published on 13 October.