Harry Potter star Bonnie Wright has said she was “disappointed” with her “chopped down” screen time in the movies.
The actor played Ginny Weasley in the eight-film saga, growing from Ron’s timid little sister to a confident young witch — and the eventual wife of Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry Potter.
However, during an appearance on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, Wright said there could have been much more character development for Ginny had the writers stuck closer to J.K. Rowling’s books.
During the chat, Wright explained how she felt anxious and frustrated while performing as Ginny, fearing that fans would react negatively if the character wasn’t done justice.
“I definitely feel there was anxiety toward performing and doing the best thing as my character built, for instance,” she said. “Like, ‘Oh gosh, will I do justice to this character that people love?’
“So that was always hard to do, especially when, inevitably, a lot of the scenes of every character were chopped down from the book to the film. So you didn’t really have as much to show in the film.”
She added: “Sometimes that was a little disappointing because there were parts of the character that just didn’t get to come through because there weren’t the scenes to do that,” she continued. “That made me feel a bit anxious or just frustrated, I guess.”
Wright went to say to that there were “a million executives” who were in charge of the scripts and adapting the books, and that it was difficult to raise any of her concerns about her screen time. However, she eventually made peace with the fact that it was beyond her control.
“When fans do share that disappointment and they do it in a way that is like, ‘We know it wasn’t you. We just wanted more of you’,” she said. “And that’s the same of every character. If only they could be five-hour-long movies.”
Coincidentally, fans may soon get to spend a lot more time with Ginny as a Harry Potter TV series is currently in the works at Max (formerly HBO Max), and promises to be a faithful adaptation of the books.