Bonnie Wright Always Knew Her Ginny Weasley Wouldn't Be Received Well

Highlights

• Film executives knew they had to secure the rights to Harry Potter to capitalize on the hype, despite the challenge of adapting the novels into movies with limited character development.
• Bonnie Wright, who portrayed Ginny Weasley, anticipated fans' disappointment in her portrayal due to the character's lack of development compared to the books.
• The film version of Ginny Weasley fell short in showcasing her strong characteristics and independence, leading to criticism from fans who recognized the stark differences from the book version.

The Harry Potter novels were met with critical acclaim as soon as they were published. As such, film executives at Warner Bros. studios knew that they had to jump on getting the rights to the story, the novels, and future novels as soon as possible to cash in on the hype around the series. After all, readers were invested in the characters and it was clear that if given the opportunity to see the J.K. Rowling novels on the big screen, all would jump at the chance to do so.

The problem with turning novels into feature-length films is that there is not always time to develop characters in the same manner as they are when bound in the pages of a book. This is why some fans of novels will choose to skip the film adaptation, knowing it will be nothing more than a disappointment.

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Fortunately for film executives, fans did not skip seeing Harry Potter films on the big screen. In fact, they spent a total of $9.58 billion at the box office to watch the films. But, there was a complaint that fans had. That complaint fans had was specifically about the way the actor who portrayed the character of Ginny Weasley in the films versus the books. As it turned out, Bonnie Wright knew that her portrayal of Ginny Weasley would not be received well by fans. When the criticisms started pouring in, Wright was not thrilled but not surprised either.

Bonnie Wright Knew That Her Portrayal Of Ginny Weasley Was Lackluster

Wright was concerned that fans of the novels would be unhappy with how she portrayed Weasley as soon as she read the script. This was not a result of Wright's acting skills.

Instead, the backlash that fans had about Weasley was that the character of Ginny Weasley was not fleshed out like it was in the novels. Fans felt like she was more of an afterthought character versus one who had a much larger role from the first novel to the last.

"I definitely feel there was anxiety toward performing and doing the best thing as my character built," Wright explained.

"Like, 'Oh gosh, will I do justice to this character that people love?' So that was always hard to do, especially when, inevitably, a lot of the scenes of every character were chopped down from the book to the film. So you didn't really have as much to show in the film. Sometimes that was a little disappointing because there were parts of the character that just didn't get to come through because there weren't the scenes to do that."

Wright went on to say, "So that made me feel a bit anxious or just frustrated I guess."

When asked by Michael Rosenbaum on his podcast, Inside of You if Wright tried to talk to executives about the development of her character, Wright made it clear that there was nothing that was going to change in the scripts once filming began.

"... There was just no room for change in those scripts," Wright said. "There were a million executives going through them all. I think what I maybe took, which I don't take so much to heart now, is I kind of felt that maybe my anxiety was about, 'Oh, I'm going to be seen as badly portraying this character,' rather than later realizing that I wasn't really given the opportunity to do that. So it wasn't really my fault, exactly."

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Wright added, "When fans do share that disappointment... they do it in a way that is like, 'We know it wasn't you. We just wanted more of you.' And that's the same of every character. If only they could be five-hour-long movies."

Unfortunately, executives and showrunners did not listen to fans and their desire for Weasley to have more depth as a character. As such, from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the character of Ginny Weasley was just a shell of what she was in the novels.

Ginny Weasley Was Far More Developed As A Character In The Harry Potter Books

In the Harry Potter novels, Ginny Weasley is more of an integral character. Not only does she have a wicked sense of humor and tremendous grit, but she also has a close relationship with Hermione Granger.

None of these strong characteristics that Weasley had are showcased in the character that Wright portrayed in the films. This is simply because there was not enough screen time for scriptwriters to do so, given that Weasley only appears just slightly over 30 minutes on the screen over the course of all eight Harry Potter films.

"... While Book Ginny was a dynamic, feisty character, Film Ginny is a Manic Pixie Wallflower that could be literally anyone Daniel Radcliffe had zero chemistry with," Entertainment Weekly stated. "Her entire role in the movies was to awkwardly kiss Harry once at the Burrow and once at Hogwarts, and then stare at him while he ran around actually doing things during the final battles."

There are several other instances that the publication points out that the book version of Weasley would never do, versus what was seen on the big screen. Those things include:

• "Ginny from the book didn't wait around for any man."
• "Ginny didn't let her crush stand in the way of being useful and smart."
• "Ginny and Neville are shown to be keeping the rebellion going at school... but only Neville's heroism made the film."
• "... Right before Harry and Ginny finally kissed, Ginny was off winning a Quidditch game because her dumb crush was stuck in detention."

Given the stark differences in what Weasley was like in print versus celluloid, it is no wonder that Harry Potter fans were up in arms about how Weasley was portrayed. But to make things worse for Wright was the fact that she did not know what the fate of Ginny Weasley would be and if her screen time with the character would be cut off prematurely.

Bonnie Wright And Her Castmates Did Not Know The Fate Of Their Characters

When it came to how the storyline would play out for Harry Potter and the rest of the characters, Rowling had everything plotted out. She knew what was going to happen in each novel and how the final novel in the series would ultimately end.

But when it came to informing the cast about the future of their Harry Potter characters, they were kept in the dark. Because of this, Wright and the rest of the actors, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, were kept in the dark. Except Rupert had arachnophobia so bad that his fear changed production plans for Harry Potter.

"I do remember like friends reading the fifth book or like being further ahead in that moment and being like, 'Oh my god have you got to page 362?' Or whatever page it was and I was like, 'No, no what happened?'" Wright explained to Business Insider.

"They didn't tell me but they were like, 'Wait till you get to this page,' as we're all reading it but they read it faster than me."

What Wright was not expecting was that Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter shared a kiss, but at least a less-awkward kiss than Radcliffe and Watson had shared in The Deathly Hallows.

Wright went on to say, "And then obviously they got to the moment where they kissed so I was like, 'Oh.'"

However, it appears that one actor was in the know about how the storyline would play out. That person who was in the know was Alan Rickman, whom Rowling confided in earlier about not only how his character would develop but how others would as well.

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"It was quite amusing, too, because there were times when a director would tell Alan what to do in a scene and he would say something like, ‘No I can’t do that – I know what is going to happen and you don’t,'" David Heyman, producer on the Harry Potter films recalled.

"He had a real understanding of the character and now looking back, you can see there was always more going on there – a look, an expression, a sentiment — that hint at what is to come … the shadow that he casts in these films is a huge one and the emotion he conveys is immeasurable."

While fans would have wished that all of the characters in the Harry Potter films were better developed, there simply was not time. As such, Harry Potter purists will always claim that the books are better than the films and those who never read the novels can enjoy the films for their entertaining storyline that was executed beautifully with a perfect beginning, middle, and end.

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