Mark Williams and Helen McCrory Talk 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' Parts 1 & 2

You don't often get Mark Williams and Helen McCrory on the same side -- their characters, Arthur Weasley and Narcissa Malfoy, are from two wizarding families that despise each other in the Harry Potter series. The Malfoys, who consider themselves pureblood, look down on the Weasleys for being poor and Muggle-friendly, at least at the beginning. But as the series progresses, complete with WWII analogies, their positions in society radically shift, culminating in a final battle for good and evil. Can the once-dark Malfoys find any redemption? Will the Weasleys have their revenge? Williams and McCrory reveal what they can about "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" Part 1 (out on DVD April 15) and Part 2 (in theaters July 15).

Q: It appears we're in the Dark Forces room here at the Harry Potter Exhibition in Times Square, with the Death Eaters and Dementors...

MW: That's a great scene with the Dementors in the underpass...

HM: That's terrifying, isn't it?

MW: ... yes, because the underpass is a very scary place anyway, and the fact that the Dementors choose it, I thought was a brilliant miixing up the magic world and the real world.

Q: Can we look forward to more Dementors, more Death Eaters in Part 2?

HM: There's a lot more of everything in 2.

MW: Lots of mythical, magical creatures appear in the final battle, but we don't see all of it. What we see are the traces of them, the marks of them, in the aftermath of the battle -- there were bits of spider corpse here and there. And there was a giant's foot at one point, and his tracks. So we see their tracks, but we don't see all of it.

Q: Does that mean we don't see a lot of the actual deaths?

MW: No, no, no. Those are choices they'll make.

HM: We filmed a lot of stuff. We filmed a lot of alternative endings for different characters, that only we will see when we see the final cut of the film. So we don't know how we end yet. So we're just as excited to see it, because we're in it, and we don't know what happens either!

Q: Maybe in an alternative joke version, you guys end up together.

HM: Who knows! [Laughs]

MW: Yeah! Where's your husband [Lucius Malfoy], and where's my wife [Molly Weasley, played by Julie Walters]?

HM: Yeah, where is your wife?

MW: Julie? Julie? [as if calling for her] No, she's not here.

Q: Well, there are a lot of other Weasleys here today -- Fred and George, Ginny and Bill...

MW: But you can never get them all in one room. It's impossible. You just can't. It's like trying to remember the seven dwarfs. You've never gotten them all. There's a new one in every picture. 

HM: And there's one you've never named -- she just runs feral around the house.

Q: Wouldn't that be more likely in your household, at the Malfoys?

HM: No, because I have control.

Q: Although not at this point in the films...

HM: We're basically occupied by somebody who wants to emasculate my husband, possibly kill my son, so yes, we're in a very, very awkward place. But she galvanizes herself, and puts everything on the line in order to save both of them. But finally I think she puts her son before everything, and anyone, including herself.

Q: That's somewhat redemptive for your character, considering everything the Malfoys have done ...

HM: Yeah...

MW: The reality of the situation politically has turned into a rather different reality for the Malfoys, especially as far as she's concerned...

HM: Exactly. But she also allows herself to be changed and affected by her son, which means there is something redeeming eventually about her.

Q: So she's not going to hold it against the Weasleys that his wife kills your sister?

HM: Nope! [Laughs] I think there's not much love lost there.

MW: Now that scene I want to see. I'm dying to see that scene.

HM: There's a great line...

MW: Fantastic. One of the best lines in the whole movie. I don't want to give it away.

Q: Echoing a certain line from "Aliens"?

MW: Yes. Could be. Could be. [grins]