Twilight Author Talks JKR

As, if there weren't already enough excuses for the Potter fandom to talk about Twilight, MTV has now a new interview interview with the author of the series, Stephenie Meyer, about J.K. Rowling.

When asked if the two authors had met, Meyer responded: “No. But I would love to; I would love to sit down and talk with her.”

Still, Meyer insisted that if she ever did meet the “Potter” mastermind, they’d have plenty to talk about. “I’d like to hear her thoughts on her fans; I know she has this big group of people who say ‘Oh no, Harry should have ended up with another girl,’ and I wonder how she feels about that when they think they have a better ending than she does,” the writer said sympathetically. “I’d also like to hear her thoughts on the movies, and what things about them she enjoyed, and how she feels about privacy and e-mails and fan letters and that whole experience as a popular writer.”

Meyer also discussed the frequent comparison used between her books and Jo's:

“The interesting thing about the comparison is that I think you can compare my fans to her fans more easily [than me to her]. I do think that we both have people who are just really really enthusiastic, and will come miles to see you and be involved, and everybody really cares about our characters. But the [’Harry Potter’ and ‘Twilight’] stories are just so different.”

An additional interview with Meyer, mainly concerning the Twilight series, can be read here.

Julie Walters Talks About The Burrow

Screen Online has posted a new interactive interview with Julie Walters. In the interview the actress briefly discussed her role as Mrs. Weasley and filming scenes in the Burrow. Unfortunately she doesn't mention anything about Half-Blood PRince

In this interactive interview, you choose a category, and then a question, and then you hear the answer. To watch the segment where she talks about the Burrow, select the category “Family” and then click “In real life, my house is a bit like the house of Mrs. Weasley.”

New JKR Interview: Dumbledore and Snape Plot Lines

Back in February, J.K. Rowling was in attendance at James Joyces Awards in Dublin. A new report is now online from a question and answer section conducted with Jo at the awards ceremony. In the interview Jo talks about a number of things. When asked she thinks of any of the actors when wrting the books, Jo said:

“To be honest no, the only actor or actress who has ever, ever intruded while writing was Evanna Lynch, who is absolutely perfect as Luna. And I must admit I have heard her voice in my head when I wrote the book.”

Jo also was asked about the construction of the plot lines throughout the series:

“But the big ones, the Dumbledore storyline, the Snape storyline were always there because you — the series is built around those.

"With Dumbledore quite deliberately, you find out little about Dumbledore’s own private life because his interactions with Harry are always about Harry, which sets up the fact that in the seventh book Harry thinks “but why did I never ask ?” He’s gone now and he’s never even thought of saying : “so how about you ?” you know, at the end of one of those conversations which I think is something that happens after the grief, the regret that he didn’t ask. And I think also that Dumbledore had always been such an almost god-like figure to Harry in some ways, that he felt he couldn’t ask him personal questions.

Snape, on the other hand, I had to drop clues all the way through because as you know in the seventh book when you have the revelation scene where everything shifts and you realize why Snape was… what Snape’s motivation was. I had to plot that through the books because at the point where you see what was really going on, it would have been an absolute cheat on the reader at that point just to show a bunch of stuff you’ve never seen before, you know… “Oh by the way, in the background this was happening.” So I did know. It was a complicated plotting process but by the time Philosopher’s Stone was finished, I definitely knew all the big things about Snape and Dumbledore because in many ways they’re the two most important characters in the seventh book… Well, other than the trio, Harry, Ron and Hermione.

You can read the whole and lengthy interview here (scroll down for English translation).

J.K. Rowling Discusses Former Struggle With Depression

As previously mentioned, a student newspaper in Edinburgh conducted a lengthly interview with J.K. Rowling. The author of the article has hence released the audio to main stream media. The Times now has an article online discussing the part of the interview when Jo talked about her struggle with depression and “suicidal thoughts” before she sought Cognitive Behavioural therapy in her mid-twenties.

These quotes were not featured in the original published interview, but can be read in The Times article.

JKR Discusses Encyclopedia, Future Books, Dumbledore, and More

J.K. Rowling has given a new interview with an Edinburgh Student newspaper, in which she discusses the Encyclopedia, future books, Dumbledore's sexuality, religious fundamentalists, and more.

In the interview Jo confirms that she has started compiling information for the Harry Potter Encyclopedia: "...I am working on it in fact. I just don't want to have to work to a deadline, but I am slowly piecing it together."

She also mentioned the children's book that she is currently working, saying it is still not finished. As for the other book she's writing for adults, it "may never see the light of day at all." Jo declined to elaborate further on these books noting "The minute I say anything, immediately my life becomes more complicated." She does go on to say that she "aways wanted to write a novel about a stand-up comedian. That is not what I am writing though, so if something comes out next week, that's not me, I'm not doing it! But for ages, I've had a real thing about it."

Jo also talked about the repeated attempts of Laura Mallory to have the Harry Potter books banned in Georgia:

"I can cope with a bad review. No one loves a bad review but a useful review is one that teaches you something. But to be honest the Christian Fundamentalist thing was bad. I would have been quite happy to sit there and debate with one of the critics who were taking on Harry Potter from a moral perspective. In a sense we have traded arguments through the media. I've tried to be rational about it. There's a woman in North Carolina or Alabama who's been trying to get the books banned-she's a mother of four and never read them. And then- I'm not lying, I'm not even making fun, this is the truth of what she said-quite recently she was asked [why] and she said 'Well I prayed whether or not I should read them, and God told me no.' Rowling pauses to reflect on the weight of that statement, and her expression one of utter disbelief.

"You see, that is where I absolutely part company with people on that side of the fence, because that is fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is, 'I will not open my mind to look on your side of the argument at all. I won't read it, I won't look at it, I'm too frightened.' That's what's dangerous about it, whether it be politically extreme, religiously extreme...In fact, fundamentalists across all the major religions, if you put them in a room, they'd have bags in common!" she laughs loudly before sobering. "They hate all the same things, it's such an ironic thing."

As for Dumbledore's sexuality:

"I had always seen Dumbledore as gay, but in a sense that's not a big deal. The book wasn't about Dumbledore being gay. It was just that from the outset obviously I knew he had this big, hidden secret, and that he flirted with the idea of exactly what Voldemort goes on to do, he flirted with the idea of racial domination, that he was going to subjugate the Muggles. So that was Dumbledore's big secret.

Why did did he flirt with that?" she asks. "He's an innately good man, what would make him do that. I didnt even think it through that way, it just seemed to come to me, I thought 'I know why he did it, he fell in love.' And whether they physically consummated this infatuation or not is not the issue. The issue is love. It's not about sex. So that's what I knew about Dumbledore. And it's relevant only in so much as he fell in love and was made an utter fool of by love. He lost his moral compass completely when he fell in love and I think subsequently became very mistrusting of his own judgment in those matters so became quite asexual. He led a celibate and bookish life."

Clearly some people didn't see it that way. How does she react to those who disagree with a homosexual character in a children's novel? "So what?" she retorts immediately "It is a very interesting question because I think homophobia is a fear of people loving, more than it is of the sexual act. There seems to be an innate distaste for the love involved, which I find absolutely extraordinary. There were people who thought, well why haven't we seen Dumbledore's angst about being gay?" Rowling is clearly amused by this and rightly so. "Where was that going to come in? And then the other thing was-and I had letters saying this-that, as a gay man, he would never be safe to teach in a school."

An air of incredulity descends on the room as if Rowling herself still can not believe this statement. She continues: "He's a very old single man. You have to ask: why is it so interesting? People have to examine their own attitudes. It's a shade of character. Is it the most important thing about him? No, it's Dumbledore for God's sake. There are 20 things that are relavant to the story before his sexuality." Bottom line then: he isn't a gay character; he's a character that just happens to be gay. Rowling concurs wholeheartedly.

Among all these things Jo also briefly addressed dealing with depression and the use of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy ("I would recommend it highly"), her being approached by readers ("people coming up to me in Starbucks are always charming, Always"), and whether she reads her own books ("The only one I've gone back and re-read since publication is the seventh book which is my favorite.")