Tom’s Twitter Account received a variety of responses from people in attendance last night at the showing he attended for his film The Disappeared. All accounts were favorable, and this morning I was able to chat with user @HarryFerguson, aka Martyn for a more thorough reaction upon meeting Tom.

“I’ve seen him in a few interviews”, said Martyn by way of email, “and I’ve always said he seemed really down to earth and genuine, now after talking to him I can say that I *know* he is. We talked about his music and how it was people like him that inspire me to play more and that it was thanks to him that I got into acting. I bumped into him outside before the showing and he very kindly signed a model guitar I had. Then again after the film.”

Martyn, I learned, is so truly inspired by Tom that he even did a cover of Tom’s Time Isn’t Healing for his YouTube channel. “It was only basic chords with me singing, though I’m working on learning the finger picking that Tom used. I’m also working on a cover of If You Could Be Anywhere.” [Editor's Note: After he returned home, Tom watched Martyn's cover on YouTube and even left him a lovely comment "Great job Harry. Was great to meet you last night. All the best buddy x"]

As Tom is a musical inspiration for this 19 year old student, I asked him what brought him out to meet him in person. “I don’t normally go for horror films,” stated Martyn. “But this one grabbed me so much I HAD to see it. It was fantastic, never a dull moment. There was a Q&A afterwards but I didn’t speak to them directly. Mum asked everyone a question, though. I was going to but thought it’d be rude if we both took up some of the question time.”

As many of you remember, Tom experienced the horrors of bleach upon his hair yesterday for his role of Draco Malfoy in the final installments of the Harry Potter saga. As such, I asked Martyn his reaction to the new ‘do. “After growing up around the Harry ‘world’ so to speak,” he said. “It seemed natural to see it like that. It was weird seeing it so short in the film though. I just hope the bleach doesn’t do any permanent damage!”

From what Tom has stated on his Twitter, he feels the same way.

To round out the evening, Twitter user @Tomsgal, aka Tina, was able to share with us some photos from the Question and Answer period of the event. Her reaction to the film was similar to Martyn’s – “Liked it. I loved it.”

Click here for even more photos!

Tom with Johnny Kevorkian and Harry Treadaway

The Disappeared will be showing at the ICA in London through 4 July. If reactions are anything to go by, it’s one not to miss.

Thanks, Martyn and Tina

It’s time to play catch-up, and this post has it all! Updates to Tom’s Twitter account, new interviews concerning the end of an era, and even a new image from Tom’s latest film, The Disappeared.

As promotions kick into high gear for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, we’re being treated to random interview tidbits from a variety of sources. At last week’s Harry Potter magical tour event in Leicester Square, Tom had the opportunity to talk with CBBC Newsround.

Draco Malfoy actor Tom Felton said the new film is definitely much funnier.
“There’s lots to look forward to,” he said. “I was laughing through the whole two hours.”

It sounds like the new film is just a bundle of laughs, or was Tom only reminiscing on what took place off camera during each scene, remembering fond times? In an interview given last year (but released last week) to Amy Raphael of the UK’s The Guardian, Tom expressed his wish to not take the remaining films for granted.

Although I only manage to shake Emma Watson’s hand as she swishes off to have her hair cut (she is the only key actor who doesn’t have time to talk, either because she’s busy getting three As at A-level or because she’s immersed in filming), her co-stars do indeed seem, if not fabulous, then at least grounded. Rupert Grint, whose Potter audition tape showed him rapping, is friendly and laid-back, while Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) is unengaged but supremely professional. She says the kiss she has with Harry in The Half-Blood Prince was awkward but she “just got on with it”. Tom Felton, who plays the dastardly Draco Malfoy, says that after years of taking his job for granted, he’s taken a vow to enjoy the remaining films. “I’m going to take loads of photos and make sure I stay in touch with everyone …”

We hope Tom is able to stay in touch with everyone, too, but we have to ask about these photos he’s been taking. Will they include pictures of Tom with his hair wrapped in silver foil? Just today Tom tweeted about his first official day on set for filming of the last remaining Harry Potter films, Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2.

Getting my hair dyed! 1st official day back! The pain of bleaching is about to start….ahhhhh

In comes the silver foil wrapped around my hairs that are about to get killed by the bleach!

Ouch! Sounds like those chemicals used to transform Tom into Draco aren’t pretty. Speaking as a former bottle blonde, I empathize.

Speaking of hair, Feltbeats.com Super Admin Misha was given the opportunity to write a fan review of Tom’s latest independent film The Disappeared, by new director Johnny Kevorkian. In a tantalizing teaser tweet of her own, she decided to share with us a screencap she was able to take from the film, reminding us that Tom didn’t always have the long hair he’s sporting now.

feltbeats: Made screen caps of @tomfelton in The Disappeared! Will release them with the Feltbeats.com Fan Review in July. Preview:

For those of you that remember, Feltbeats.com was able to give away free tickets to two screenings of the film in London recently. One of those screenings will occur tonight, and will be followed by a Question and Answer session that will include Tom and various other members of the cast and crew. Click on back to Feltbeats.com for the latest on this event as we hope to bring you new photos and interviews from our own Tom Felton.

Tom’s horror flick will be screened at the following film festivals:

Firstly it will be showing at the Vail Film Festival in Colorado on April 3rd at 10pm.

Secondly it will be showing at the Newport Beach Film Festival in California on April 29th at 8:15pm.

It will also be showing at the Houston International Film Festival in Texas on April 18th at 5pm.

Finally it will be showing at the Mauvais Genre festival in Tours, France on April 11th.

Thanks to www.snitchseeker.com for the news!

Kelsey Zukowski from FilmArcade.net, a movie review blog, wrote a positive review of “The Disappeared” after it played at the Cleveland International Film Festival last Saturday (Sorry, Ohio folks, I didn’t know!).

About Tom, Mr. Zukowski says:

Tom Felton, most well known as Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films does very well as Simon, Matthew’s skeptical friend. At first I didn’t even recognize him and although it was just a supporting role this film was a great move for him to be involved in meaningful material outside of the Harry Potter world just like many of the actors from the films are doing. Simon shows a tough exterior, but as his friend is in trouble and his sister is gone, he shows how vulnerable he is. He is scared, but can’t ignore his intuition telling him things will only get worse if he ignores his gut feeling.

On April 11, 2009, “The Disappeared,” a horror film directed by Johnny Kevorkian and starring Tom Felton, will be screen at the Mauvis Genre horror festival in Tours, France.

French FeltFans should definitely check it out!

Well, here is the second half of the Goodprattle interview! This time, the interviewer had a better phone connection and the interview benefited!

Okay… [Tom answers the phone]
Hello!

Hi, Tom. I’m so sorry. We got disconnected!
Oh, no, it’s fine, it’s fine! Not to worry, not to worry.

So I’d like to continue with what you were—oh, and now the connection sounds better! This is great!
Yeah, it sounds a lot better! Thank god for that!

I know!
The first time it was sort of like a strange blur! I couldn’t really hear anything, but this sounds much better. Now we can have a decent conversation.

Yes, yes. Finally.
Good, good, good. Finally, yeah. I think I was rambling on about… oh, yes, [Draco's] vulnerability, and how there’s a completely different side of him [in Half-Blood Prince] that hasn’t really been exposed in years previous. Obviously, he’s been given an actual chance for depth, say, whereas before he was always sort of an annoying, slimy git, but in the back of the classroom. But in that respect I had to take a lot more sort of gentle and soft approach to how he might deal with his task.

We also get to see that he’s not doing what he is doing for Voldemort so much as for his family.
Completely, yeah. Sure. But it’s all in the eyes of his father, isn’t it, really? Normally it’s locked away, but now he feels like he’s the man of the house and he needs to sort of represent the Malfoy Manor to the fullest, really, and, yeah, he’s not built from the same stuff as young Harry is. He’s not cut from the same cloth, by any means, and he certainly can’t hold his nerve when he needs to.

Yeah. What sort of relationship do you think he has with his father?
A very interesting one, actually! I mean, mostly he idolizes his father to every last degree, and equally, I’m sure, he’s terrified of his father! He’s absolutely petrified, and I think most things are done maybe 20% fully from the fear that he might get another clock around the ear! I’d be intrigued to hear what Joanne Rowling would have to say about that.

Yeah. Certainly, he’s not the most decent person, but he has a reason, because he’s had a very different sort of upbringing.
Sure. I mean, one thing for sure is he’s not the way he is out of chance. He’s well and truly been brought up that way, if that makes sense. In this film coming up, I think the ultimate goal that David Yates [the director] and I sat down and spoke earlier on is that we want to make him to do some of these horrible things and to instigate some terrible notions but at the same time—for the audience to hate him, as they always have done, naturally, but also to feel terrifically sorry for him and to empathize with the situation that he’s in, because, in modern terms, you’ve been given a gun and told to shoot the Prime Minister or the President. He’s been given a task that, really, he’s not up for.

It’s like, “Do this or we’ll kill your family.” Essentially.
Completely. Completely, and that’s a tough time for anyone to be in, especially a child.

Yeah, absolutely. And with the progression of the films the director’s chair has been passed along to different people, so I’m sure that also affected not only your portrayal but also the understanding of the role.
Sure, completely. I mean, one thing that was quite important for me was to not think of book number seven and not think—he almost goes slightly back in number seven, back into his old sort of gittish ways—

Almost.
Yeah, I know there’s sort of a lovely sort of odd scene in the Malfoy Manor in which he chooses not to rat them out—I think he chooses not to recognize young Harry, which is quite a big thing!

Nor to recognize Hermione.
Yeah, there’s quite a bit of mystery about his character from this one onward, really! I think that he definitely had a sort of revelation inside where he doesn’t quite know where he is or who he is or what he’s doing. And there’s a great scene in this one where he runs into the bathroom after hearing that he’s hurt someone and he breaks down and he can’t handle it any more, which is, again, a really interesting side to see of someone who’s such a slimy git! [laughs]

Yeah! So… [laughs] now that we have such a clear connection, I want to go back and talk about some of the things we were talking about before, back when we couldn’t hear each other.
Yeah, sure. Fire away.

So could you talk again about The Disappeared?
Yeah, The Disappeared being a small British film that we did in between this and the last Harry Potter. It’s very different from Harry Potter; it’s a bit of a sci-fi/horror, I think, or something along those lines. It’s got quite a solid script, and we shot the whole thing in around 26 days in London, which was very contrasting from the shooting experience of Harry Potter. Simon is not a central role, not too central, slightly similar to Draco’s, if that makes sense, and it was very fun shooting it. It was very interesting to see the different styles of filming, and when you only have very limited money and very limited time it adds a whole ‘nother layer to the film. Unfortunately, I’m not sure when the film is going to make major distribution or when it will go to DVD; I don’t think it’s going to be released outside the UK, unfortunately, but I’ve seen it, I saw it about three weeks ago, and it’s a good film—it’s a good film period, but considering that they made it on what they made it on—and if you compare that Harry Potter will be made for $200 million or something crazy like that, well, this film was made for under a million dollars, which is hardly anything, really, in the scheme of things. So I think what they’ve achieved for the money was amazing, but how well it will do I’m not too sure.

Right. Well, definitely also Harry Potter and a smaller film have different things that are very unique. I mean, Harry Potter is sort of a singular experience, but that is a project that by the end will have encompassed ten years!
Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean… yeah, I know for a fact you won’t ever find a job like it, without a shadow of a doubt.

I think that’s because you won’t ever find another phenomenon that’s fully like the books were.
Yeah. Well, that’s the other side of it, is that you’ll never find another story like it, you know what I mean? Even if you do find another chain of films that goes on for ten years and all the rest of it, you’ll never find—I personally don’t think you’ll find a set of stories that generally get better as they go along. I mean, usually that’s a cliché, and usually they make them worse every year, but going along with the stories, I can only hope that the films are getting better as well. So, yeah, I am pretty intrigued to see what this one will be like, because I haven’t actually watched any of the stuff while we were filming it. I mean, I would see bits of it while we were doing some sound dubbing, but other than that, I’m as much of a virgin to it as you are. So I’m looking forward to that.

Right. You know, also J.K. Rowling has created not only a brilliant set of stories but also this incredible, great, big world into which fans can just go and be fully engaged.
I know! It’s crazy. I think the fan base is one of the most unique things about the books and about the films. The one thing that always, always amazes me is the very range of age. You know, there really isn’t “an age” where Harry Potter is cool—you can be five years old—I’ve seen little kids coming up to the premieres and coming up to the studios, and I’ve seen 78-year-old-men come up to the studios and they’ve been over the moon to meet Daniel [Radcliffe] and so forth. It’s very bizarre, because usually there’s a quite clear divide as to whether it’s sort of a kid’s film or not. We really don’t fall into any category. It’s actually a film for everyone, and it seems to bring out a really fanatical side of moviegoers. I mean, not talking from too much experience, but, of the premieres I’ve been to, the Harry Potter ones have been the craziest without a doubt. [laughs] Especially in America!

Oh, yeah. And there are so many different ways to get engaged as a fan—there’s the stories, and then there’s the world…
Yeah, you can really lose yourself as a fan.

In other fandoms for other works you see fanfiction and other things, but not nearly to the extent you see it for Harry Potter.
No, by any means. No, no, exactly that. It’s a whole ‘nother world, like you say. [laughs] I think it can be quite easy for people to lose themselves.

I’ve seen people write stories pairing Draco with Hermione.
[laughs] Sort of worrying.

[laughs] Well, I’ve also seen stories where Draco’s paired with Harry. There’s everything.
[laughs] Even more worrying! [laughter] No, again, I really think it opened people’s imaginations on a whole ‘nother level, really. And it’s great, because a lot of kids now who might not have been into books and reading so much are now thinking about becoming authors themselves.

Right. Absolutely.
[Rowling]’s a great role model, and I can’t help but think that great things will come from it, and she’s inspired so many people.

It’s absolutely great that there’s been a series that has engaged so much of the world, especially when reading seems to be dying out.
Yeah, sure. No, exactly that. It’s nice to have some fresh stories, really, some fresh ideas, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. And, sure, I feel like post-Harry Potter there are more mini-phenomena in the literary world than there were before because people are getting more into books.
That’s it! The long and short of it is, they read the seven Harry Potter books and they’re looking for something else to read! I think single-handedly Jo Rowling has inspired the reading world to get reading again. I mean, obviously there are people who were reading before, but I can’t imagine the number of children who are now heavily into reading thanks to Harry Potter.

And now there’s Artemis Fowl, there’s Twilight, there are all these series that are getting a lot of attention, and they probably wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Harry Potter.
Sure. Yeah, sure. Well, I’ve read that a lot of books and series—call it what you want to call it, “jumping on the bandwagon” or whatever—but it’s a very popular genre now and people are noticing that. And, I mean, it’s great to see any ideas that are new, and especially ones that sort of unlock kids’ imaginations. It’s a good thing.

Okay, we totally got sidetracked—which is great. I love getting sidetracked. But I wanted to ask you about your reaction to working on such a more intimate set than the Harry Potter set.
Well, time was one thing. I remember the first day on Disappeared they did a little line up to make sure we were all sorted in the camera, and we sort of did a rehearsal, or what I thought was a rehearsal, and at the end of that—and I was shocked, we hadn’t even… they did just about anything they could to save time, which was not completely different from Harry Potter, but with Harry Potter you have all the time in the world to learn your lines and so forth, and at the end of the day if you mess it up you can just redo it. That’s not a problem. Whereas all these smaller films, they’re very keen to get it right the first time. Which adds another layer of energy to the set, if you know what I mean.

Okay. So, taking advantage again of the new clear connection, I want you to talk again about FeltBeats.
Yeah, well, I think you actually asked me, “Why ‘Feltbeats’?” [laughs] That was just a nickname that was given to me about five years ago by some friends, and that’s what my friends know me as online.

[laughs] That’s great.
It was supposed to be an alias where people don’t know that it’s me, but somehow on YouTube that didn’t go down too well. I think I got fairly recognized fairly quickly up there. And then I got outed. But, other than that, it’s not really… I don’t mind. People have been very complimentary, and honestly, I’m only doing it for fun. It’s nice to be able to share it and to hear comments back, whether positive or negative. It’s nice to hear other people’s thoughts.

And it’s a different medium, which can be good, because it’s a break from acting but a different way to be engaged creatively.
Yeah, completely. I mean, I like to think I’m quite a creative person; it’s just one way of releasing it, really! I mean, even more so than anything else, because when I’m given six strings and a pen and pad it’s a completely open palate, because you can do anything you like. There are no lines to follow, or directions. You can do as you like. There’s something I like about that.

I know that you write your own songs, so it’s so much more a product of yourself than your acting is because you create it all organically.
Yeah. Well, that’s the scary side of it, because I find that if you’re acting and somebody says, “I don’t like that,” you can always say, “Well… I was told to do that!” [laughs] Whereas if it’s something that’s completely your idea, you really have to face the flames if other people don’t like it. But, like I say, I’m not trying to get signed or trying to get a record deal. It’s just for fun, and it was originally so my friends abroad could keep up with my music and keep up with what I’ve been writing and so forth, and obviously it’s turned into something a bit more than that. But I’m happy to share if people are friendly enough to listen, so no complaints!

Right. And you did say that the reason you put your music on iTunes was to—to save up for a more professional recording? Is that what you said earlier?
No, no, no! I was talking about making it a charitable donation, really. I’d like to give back to where I came from, if that makes sense?

Okay. Yeah. It was impossible to hear!
Nothing’s set in stone yet, so I don’t want to advertise it too much or anything, but actually a charity in America. Colorado. In Boulder. A couple of people—I went out there last year and they helped me a lot musically, and they own a charity, and I’d be happy to help them along their way.

What kind of charity is it?
It’s called There with Care, and it’s a foundation that helps terminally ill children and their families. And the lady who owns it was the executive producer on the first three Harry Potter films, and she gave up her life as sort of a high executive to start her own charity up, and she’s been tremendously happy since, and it’s a really genuine cause.

All right, I think we’re coming to the end. Thanks so much for doing the interview; it was great talking to you.
Yeah, great talking to you too. And good luck with everything else.

Bye!
Bye, Keely! Bye.

This is the end of our interview with Tom Felton! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out in July; be sure to keep your eye out for information regarding the release of The Disappeared.

Leeds International Film Festival – Leeds, England
“The Disappeared” Screening: Saturday the 8th of November at 12pm Noon GMT.

Leeds International Film Festival is your portal to the unseen world of cinema. Leeds is an immense and intense experience that reveals the incredible wonder of global filmmaking that you can’t see on your local screen or at home. Over thirteen days Leeds presents more than 200 screenings and events in a dozen venues to thousands of filmgoers eager to discover what is really happening in contemporary cinema.

http://www.leedsfilm.com