Wednesday, November 14, 2007

My thing with Harry Potter

Friends and family know that I am addicted to Harry Potter. When the first movie was released in the fall of 2001, my son was the perfect age to experience all things Harry Potter and as a parent I enjoyed every aspect of the books, the movies, the marketing, just everything really. For every book and movie release in the last 6 years we have hosted a party attended by friends and family. I have enjoyed dressing up as characters, decorating the house, making games and book inspired food and really just immersing myself in the fantasy.
The 5th movie and final Potter book were released within weeks of each other this summer, and sadly our book release events came to an end. However, I still have 2 more movies to plan parties around and expect these to be the best and biggest of them all. (My teenage son is very good at allowing his silly mom to step away from reality)
Some of my favorite sites to browse when I need to get away from reality are:
http://www.jkrowling.com/
http://www.mugglenet.com/ and
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/index-2.html
It was while browsing on one of the sites that I found some delightful articles about one of my favorite characters and the actress who plays her, Luna Lovegood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_Lovegood
and the young actress who plays her Evanna Lynch, here is a site dedicated to her http://evannalynch.net/
Her story is a young girls wildest dream come true. Evanna at age 14 was cast as Luna in early 2006 after attending an open audition in London where she beat out 15,000 girls for the role. The best part of her rags-to-riches story is that she is a serious Harry Potter fan with no acting experience who just knew that she was the "real" Luna Lovegood. So she had her Dad take her to London from the tiny rural Irish village where she lived and audition and just like that she had the role. And for anyone who has read the books and seen the 5th film, she is absolutely perfect.
What I like about this actress and her character is that she embodies the best thing about the Harry Potter franchise. An innocent child with faith that what you need are friends and determination that the fantasy can become a reality.

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