Tom Felton On Loving Harry Potter—And Emma Watson (2024)

Nobody loves Harry Potter more than Tom Felton. The 35-year-old actor might have lost the trademark platinum blonde locks he sported while playing Hogwarts student Draco Malfoy in all eight films, but he’s never lost his love for the wizarding world.

“I’m a huge fan of Potter,” he tells ELLE Australia. “Or Pottaahh, rather,” he adds, accentuating the second syllable of “Potter” in a very Draco Malfoy way. “It got me back into reading. There was a time when I grew up when reading became not so cool, and then single-handedly Potter turned it into something that you weren’t cool if you hadn’t read the books.”

Potter was also responsible for Felton’s career. Although he’d appeared in a couple productions prior to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, it was being cast as the sneering Slytherin student Draco Malfoy that catapulted Felton — as well as his co-stars Daniel Radcliffe (who played Harry Potter), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) into superstardom.

And while his fellow child actors have worked to shrug off the fairly sizable Harry Potter shadow, Felton has leaned in. His book, Beyond The Wand (2022), is a behind-the-scenes account of filming one of the biggest franchises of all time, and his Instagram account regularly shares reunions with his Potter cast, riffing on the wizarding world’s Gryffindor vs Slytherin rivalry.

“To me, the best thing about the Harry Potter universe is that it has brought more people together than anything I’ve seen, including sports and fans of all different genres,” he says, revealing that one of his friends is a “Marvel nut”. “However that affects people, whether that’s through fan fiction or conventions, I’m a huge fan of that.”

Adding to that love for Potter is Felton’s latest move which, after more than a decade, brings him back into the world of magic.

He stars in the latest Uber Eats campaign, playing a version of himself who — in his longing to return to the wizarding world — orders “magic” via the delivery app. Naturally, chaos ensues. In the 30-second ad, Felton accidentally vanishes his neighbour, and then goes to increasing lengths to cover up his crime. It’s the latest iteration of Uber’s ‘Get Almost Almost Anything’ campaign, which says: well, you can’t order magic, but you can order pretty much anything else.

So, what would Felton do if he could order magic? “Flying,” he answers quickly. “Flying would be the main one. I love birds. I’m obsessed with birds.” Like, bird watching? “Not a bird watcher, so to speak,” he clarifies, “but I love being able to watch them. Flight would be the most useful, but the idea of being able to magically transport yourself from one place to another [known as ‘Apparition’ in the Potter universe] would be pretty cool, too.”

Due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, Tom Felton couldn’t speak to ELLE Australia about the upcoming Harry Potter TV show or his time on the films. However, he could speak about his autobiography, which chronicles his time filming Harry Potter as well as the aftermath of experiencing such fame, including two stints in rehab. So what was it like, telling his story at last?

“I find writing quite cathartic,” he says, revealing he writes almost daily. “It’s kind of my meditation, whether it’s poetry or daily thoughts or jokes or music lyrics or chapters of the book. So writing the book was not a process of me actually sitting down and writing it; it was more a case of me collating my 10,000 pages of notes that I’ve scribbled along the way.”

Tom Felton On His Relationship With Emma Watson

In news that thrilled Harry Potter fans, Emma Watson wrote the forward to Beyond The Wand. And while no, the pair have never dated, Watson did describe the two as “soulmates” — and yes, the pair are still close to this day.

“I love Emma so much,” Felton tells ELLE. “And I think, I know she loves me. She was the first person to read the earliest drafts of the book, and she was very kind to volunteer and write the forward for it, which I’m forever grateful for.”

Their relationship famously started on rocky ground, after Felton was his “obnoxious” self during the auditioning process.

“I was a bit of a smug 13 year old teenager, and she was a nine-year-old girl at her first time on set,” Felton says. “We actually auditioned together, months before we were cast as the characters. The story goes that they put 20 of us together, and he [Christopher Columbus, who directed the first two Potter films] auditioned us and then ‘left’ us to our own devices, which was clearly a lie. He left us with a huge boom mic over our head, and Emma was very sweet and said, ‘What’s that?’ And I obnoxiously said, “It’s a microphone, obviously.” And I think, weirdly, my subtle arrogance probably tipped in my favour and helped me get the part of Draco.

Their friendship is one Felton hopes will continue for many years to come, even if the world never gets a real-life ‘Dramione’ pairing it wants. (That’s Hermione and Draco’s couple name, for those not in the know.) “I couldn’t speak more highly of Emma Watson, and what she’s doing for the world,” Felton adds.

And despite sending up Gryffindor vs Slytherin rivalries in public, Felton is a little more realistic (if you can even use that word) in private. “I’ve been told I’m a Slythindor,” he says. “Like, I’m mischievous by nature, but I have a good heart.”