"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2," is the final adventure in the Harry Potter film series.  The much-anticipated motion picture event is the second of two full-length parts.
In the epic finale, the battle between the good and evil forces of the wizarding world escalates into an all-out war.  The stakes have never been higher and no one is safe.  But it is Harry Potter who may be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice as he draws closer to the climactic showdown with Lord Voldemort.

It all ends here.

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, reprising their roles as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.  The film's ensemble cast also includes Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Tom Felton, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Ciarán Hinds, John Hurt, Jason Isaacs, Matthew Lewis, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, David Thewlis, Julie Walters and Bonnie Wright.
The film was directed by David Yates, who also helmed the blockbusters "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1."  David Heyman, the producer of all of the Harry Potter films, produced the final film, together with David Barron and J.K. Rowling.  Screenwriter Steve Kloves adapted the screenplay, based on the book by J.K. Rowling.  Lionel Wigram is the executive producer.


ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Ten years ago, those four words signified the beginning of the extraordinary cinematic journey of a boy whose name became synonymous with magic: Harry Potter.  Over the next decade, the film franchise that bears his name changed movie history while also changing the lives of its multi-generational ensemble cast and the filmmakers who devoted themselves to bringing J.K. Rowling's seven-volume literary masterpiece to the screen.
Commencing with 2001's "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and culminating with the two-part adaptation of the final title, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the films have become the top-grossing franchise of all time, capturing the imagination of audiences around the world.  Additionally, both the books and the movies have been woven into our culture, adding words like Muggle, Quidditch, Hogwarts and even Expelliarmus! to the global lexicon.
David Heyman, who, in 1997, discovered the as-yet-unpublished Harry Potter manuscript and has produced all of the movies, acknowledges, "I could never have imagined when we embarked on the first film the level of response from audiences through the years.  It's been beyond my wildest dreams, so I look back on it with great pride and with gratitude, for the fans and especially for Jo Rowling."
Collectively, the Harry Potter movies were an unprecedented undertaking for all involved--no other motion picture series had ever followed a linear story surrounding the same characters over the course of eight full-length features.
Producer David Barron notes, "It really has been unique, but it was entirely dependent on having rich enough source material, and that, of course, began with the books."
Creatively, states author and producer J.K Rowling, the single thread of the story was very much by design.  "I had a very, very clear idea of where Harry was going to go.  This was just one story that I wanted to tell.  For me, that was key if the books were ever going to be made into films; it had to be done that way.  When I met David Heyman, he completely understood."
Rowling found another invaluable collaborator in screenwriter Steve Kloves, who has adapted six of the seven books.  "Steve really got the books," she says, adding, "I was always accepting of the fact that changes must occur in the process of moving from the page to the screen.  But even the scenes that were different were always very true to the spirit of the books."
Kloves remarks, "We had one cohesive, bracing tale that literally had no end when we began, since only the first three books had been published.  Although that sometimes made for challenging circumstances, my instincts were pretty true.  But in those instances when I was in need of assistance, I had an ally whose counsel I felt was reasonably sound: Jo," he deadpans.  "While she was never explicit, she was always available and highly adept at gently nudging me in the right direction.  In the end, one principle proved pretty reliable: follow the characters."
Director David Yates says, "In following the characters, many of the values that Jo celebrates in the books come to the fore in the films--the value of loyalty and love and friendship and understanding versus intolerance and evil."
"The power of love is a huge theme throughout the books and the films, as well," Rowling adds.  "There are lots of different kinds of love expressed over the course of the story, but friendship is probably the strongest form of love that you see in the movies."
The love between friends is embodied most in the characters of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.  They were portrayed by three young actors who literally grew up on the screen: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.
Radcliffe relates, "I couldn't even attempt to sum up what the role of Harry Potter has meant to me, but I can say that I never took the opportunity to play him lightly.  It may have been the same character, but like anyone else, Harry changed a lot over the years so, as an actor, I looked at each film as an opportunity to do something fresh and to develop another set of skills."
"I feel very privileged to have played Hermione," says Watson.  "I think she's someone young girls can look up to because she's always true to herself.  She's very smart and an incredibly courageous and loyal friend who keeps a cool head in extremely difficult situations.  It was wonderful to be able to bring across those elements of her personality throughout the films."
"I know I'll miss playing Ron because there was a time when I was him more than I wasn't him," Grint laughs.  "And I really liked the development of his character.  He started out as a kid who was quite easily scared and it was nice to see him grow up to be brave and resourceful, particularly in this last movie where they are in such an unpredictable and dangerous place."
Heyman notes, "Over the course of these films, we've truly had the who's who of British acting royalty on our stages, which was tremendous.  But watching our young cast grow into fine actors and fine people has been one of the great joys of working on the Harry Potter films.  We're incredibly proud of them."
Audiences have also watched all of the young characters in Harry Potter go from childhood to adulthood and, as they have matured, so have the stories.  "It's about engaging the imagination because those are 'muscles' that also need to be developed as a child grows up," says Alan Rickman, who has played the enigmatic Professor Severus Snape in all of the movies.  "In order for that to happen properly, there have to be some big themes to think about.  What's right and what's wrong?  Who do I trust and who don't I?  What does it mean to be brave…and what does loyalty mean?  It's all in there."
With each successive title, the stakes were raised and the dangers amplified as Lord Voldemort returned and now reigns.
In "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2," the young wizards are now on the front lines of a world at war.  Heyman declares, "This is the final battle for Hogwarts, the final battle for the wizarding world and--something we've been building towards throughout this series--the final conflict between Harry and Voldemort."
Yates says, "It was important to end the series with an epic finale, so we have battles and dragons, spiders and giants...but at heart, this is a story about the characters.  Spectacle is important, but caring about the people in the middle of it is what pulls the audience into the journey with them."
"There's a lot more action, but the emotional core of the story has always been what these movies are about, and we would never want to overshadow that," Barron says.
Heyman agrees.  "The all-out war between good and evil is thrilling, but there is still an emotional underpinning.  And because we've been invested in these characters for so long, it feels there is much more at stake."
The climactic conclusion of the story reveals some surprising new facets of several beloved characters.  Yates affirms, "One of the most interesting things about the way this story unfolds is that the line separating the forces of darkness and light is blurred and we see that certain people are more complex than they first appeared."
"All of the characters--Harry included--are flawed," Rowling adds.  "We don't have one wholly good or wholly bad person…with the exception of Voldemort.  He is wholly evil.  There are no redeeming qualities there," she smiles.
The final film brings the characters back to some familiar places, including the now-iconic Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which was not seen at all in "Part 1," marking a first for the series.  Conceived by Rowling and realized by production designer Stuart Craig, Hogwarts has been a home, a headquarters and a haven to its students and faculty.
But it is about to become a battlefield.

READ MORE ABOUT DAVID YATES (Director), J.K. (JOANNE KATHLEEN) ROWLING (Author/Producer) AND STEVE KLOVES (Screenwriter)

"If it's true what you say, that he has the Elder Wand, I'm afraid you really don't stand a chance."

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" begins where "Part 1" ended: with a theft that will have lasting repercussions.  The stone crypt of Albus Dumbledore is desecrated and a distinctively shaped wand is taken from the late headmaster's hands.  With triumphant malice, the thief--Lord Voldemort himself--raises the Elder Wand high into the air, sending lightning bolts into the swirling dark clouds above.
As legend has it, the Elder Wand is one of the titular Deathly Hallows--along with the Resurrection Stone and the Invisibility Cloak--which together provide one with mastery over Death.  Each has valuable properties of its own, with the Elder Wand said to be the most powerful wand in existence.
Ralph Fiennes, who once again portrays the Dark Lord, offers, "Voldemort is under the belief that whoever possesses the Elder Wand would have supremacy, but it's more complicated than that, much to his frustration."
Voldemort had learned of the Elder Wand from Mr. Ollivander, whom he tortured into revealing its location.  The expert wand maker warns Harry that if Voldemort does have the Elder Wand, Harry has no chance against him.  But the added threat won't deter Harry Potter from his mission--to find and destroy the remaining Horcruxes, items in which the Dark Lord has embedded pieces of his soul in his quest for immortality.  Three have been destroyed, four remain, but as long as even one survives, the Dark Lord cannot be defeated.
Yates comments, "At the beginning of 'Part 2,' Harry is a man rather than a boy and is ruthlessly sure of his task.  He needs to kill Voldemort.  He knows he must be the one to finish it and he is determined to see it through."

"Even amongst goblins, you're famous, Harry Potter."

A clue as to the whereabouts of another Horcrux comes from someone else Harry first met on Diagon Alley all those years ago: a goblin named Griphook, who works at Gringotts Bank.
Warwick Davis, who had actually provided the voice of Griphook in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," returns to portray the character in the final film.  Davis is also known to audiences as Hogwarts' Professor Filius Flitwick and says that playing both roles "really allowed me to stretch my acting muscles because the two characters are poles apart.  Flitwick is a wizard and quite a warm character, whereas Griphook is a goblin who thinks wizards are untrustworthy.  Then again, it's Griphook who tries to manipulate the situation to his own advantage.  If you encounter a goblin, beware," he grins.  "They're very selfish and will do anything to get their way."
Griphook tells Harry that there is a duplicate of the sword of Gryffindor in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault at Gringotts Bank, although, unbeknownst to her it is a counterfeit and Harry is in possession of the real one.  The goblin divulges that it is only one of many objects in Madam Lestrange's vault and Harry suspects that the vault of a trusted Death Eater might be the perfect place to hide a Horcrux.
"Basically, they have to pull off a bank heist," Yates says.  "They need to break in to see if there's a Horcrux in Bellatrix's vault.  If they find it and destroy it, they are one step closer to killing Voldemort.  But robbing Gringotts is not going to be easy, to say the least.  There are a number of obstacles in their way."
Griphook agrees to help them get into Gringotts for a steep price: the sword of Gryffindor.  Gaining entry to Bellatrix's vault is another matter.  With the aid of some Polyjuice Potion, they will be accompanied by Madam Lestrange herself--or rather Hermione Granger in the guise of Bellatrix.
Since her introduction in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," one of the hallmarks of Bellatrix Lestrange has been how utterly mad she is, and Helena Bonham Carter had always reveled in the boundless nature of her character.  Portraying Hermione pretending to be Bellatrix, however, required a few definite boundaries.  Bonham Carter attests, "It's not actually Bellatrix; it's Hermione's version of Bellatrix.  They are total opposites so it was good fun because it gave me another texture to play."
Capturing the dichotomy involved the collaboration of Bonham Carter, Yates and the person who knows Hermione better than anyone: Emma Watson. 
Yates recalls, "We had a big rehearsal session where Emma basically did the scene, demonstrating how she would walk and how she would say her lines and we videotaped it so Helena could incorporate that into her performance."
Bonham Carter adds, "Emma and I discussed the scene at length and she gave me terrific bullet points, which became my Hermione guidebook."
"One of the things I really wanted Helena to get across is how awkward the whole experience is for Hermione," Watson observes.  "She is very uncomfortable because, for one thing, Hermione is somewhat prudish and Bellatrix is wild and goes around in a leather corset.  And Bellatrix is evil and arrogant while Hermione is a good person, so being mean and demanding to everyone doesn't come naturally to her at all."
With Ron disguised as a Death Eater, and Harry and Griphook hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, the group makes their way into Gringotts, where rows of goblin bank tellers barely look up from their ledgers. 
For the Gringotts sequence, Davis did double duty, not only acting but casting.  He explains, "I represent actors under five feet tall, so the filmmakers came to me and asked me to help them find more than 60 people to play goblins, who could also handle the extensive prosthetics.  We had actors come in from all over Europe, so it was like the United Nations of goblins."
Turning dozens of actors into goblins also entailed a multilateral effort from special make-up effects designer Nick Dudman and his team.  They began by sculpting the goblin faces, with the caveat that no two could be identical.  Dudman confirms, "We had to carefully monitor the designs so they wouldn't look alike because we wanted to make them each individual.  We then mass produced all the prosthetic pieces, but every one had to be hand-painted and the hairs of the eyebrows had to be placed one-by-one into the silicone.  It's incredibly labor intensive."
An assembly line of approximately 170 make-up artists was recruited to apply the goblins' make-up, which took as long as four hours per goblin.  In order to ensure that each one was done according to Dudman's specifications, he ran a three-day workshop, training a multi-national team to apply the make-up over and over again until he felt they were accurate.  Nevertheless, Dudman emphasizes, "Nobody left that room without me checking them."
Since the goblins were bankers, costume designer Jany Temime and her department dressed them all very conservatively in three-piece pinstripe suits, each of which was specially made.
The Gringotts scene in "Philosopher's Stone" was actually shot on location, with the Australian Embassy doubling for the wizard bank.  That location was not an option for "Deathly Hallows - Part 2," as the action would result in a considerable amount of destruction.  The Gringotts Bank set was instead constructed in the flight shed at Leavesden Studios.
Stuart Craig, who has served as the production designer on all of the Harry Potter films, saw it as an opportunity to improve on the bank design, making it bolder while staying true to the spirit of the original.  "This is a magical bank, so we wanted it to look very traditional but to exaggerate it.  There is more polished marble than you could ever imagine--marble floors, marble walls, marble columns, marble counters.  It's all faux, but it looks amazing.  And we had fun with the goblins being imperiously perched on their very high stools at their very high desks looking down on their customers.  We also made three enormous chandeliers because it was impossible to find any that were big enough for our needs."
Through an amalgam of subterfuge and magic, Harry, Hermione and Ron trick their way down to the Gringotts vaults, which are located in a vast cavern beneath the building.  It can only be accessed via a cart that careens along a spiraling track akin to that of a roller coaster…and at similar speeds, albeit without the safety restraints.  Special effects supervisor John Richardson recounts, "We built the cart from the ground up based on Stuart Craig's designs.  Unlike most vehicles, where we had multiple versions, there was only one cart, so it had to be able to be attached to different rigs as well as be mounted on the track, enabling it to move up and down and tilt side to side."
At the cavern's deepest level, Harry, Ron and Hermione are faced with the bank's maximum security system--a giant, fire-breathing dragon that is as much a prisoner as it is a guard.  The fearsome winged dragon was the latest creature rendered through CGI by the visual effects team, headed by Tim Burke.
With Griphook disclosing the dragon's vulnerability, the group manages to evade it and get to Bellatrix's vault.  The door opens to reveal an inestimable fortune in gold coins and various artifacts.  But Bellatrix has instituted one final security measure: a Gemino curse, which causes every object they touch to sprout unlimited multiples of itself.  Sensing the presence of a Horcrux--Helga Hufflepuff's cup--Harry has seconds to get it and get out before they are all crushed under the mounting treasure trove.
Working within the limited space constraints, Richardson's team crafted a series of scissor lifts that rose up to give the illusion of the treasure mounting.  The props department, led by property master Barry Wilkinson and supervising modeler Pierre Bohanna, molded more than 200,000 golden coins and thousands of other items to fill the vault.  Visual effects were then utilized to reproduce each item, exactly and exponentially.
Once Harry, Ron and Hermione have the Horcrux in hand, it will take a combination of ingenuity and compassion to escape Gringotts.  But greater perils await the trio, who find themselves alone again with no turning back. 
"Ultimately," states Radcliffe, "they all know the reason they are on this journey, and it's bigger than any one of them, or all three of them, or even their friends and families.  For these 17 year olds to have the maturity and courage to recognize that what's at stake is more important than any of their individual lives is quite impressive, and I also think it's what makes it a very moving story."

"The boy has discovered our secret, Nagini."            Read more