The long and eagerly awaited book With a Magic Wand: The Magical Adolescence of a Movie Wizard was published in early November. It is presented as “an absolute must for any Harry Potter fan”. However, everyone will be delighted by its contentwho discovered its author Tom Felton in the young British acting generation… What was it like growing up in the middle of filming the biggest movie hit of the last decades?
Starting in 2000, Tom Felton became the Slytherin student Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series for 10 years. Draco can be considered one of the main villains, although he didn’t kill or kidnap, he was Harry’s rival. | Warner Bros., Vertical Ent.
Movie Draco Malfoy, the arch-rival of Harry Potter, decided years later to confide the most personal and funny memories of more than a decade of filming, whose book manuscript changed the world and became a unique phenomenon and pop culture hit. Few can claim to have graduated from the most prestigious wizarding school in the world at Hogwarts. Actor Tom Felton went through this experience, even though he belonged to the least popular and most feared Slytherin dormitory.
As the publisher reveals, on the 408 pages of the book there are no shortage of answers to the questions: who from the film cast grew to Tom’s heart the most? How Tom’s romance with the movie Hermione Emma Watson really was? And what did she manage to upset the dreaded Professor Snape? But everything else that the book can offer is also important for future readers. The title With a magic wand is not a boring biography, but an interesting story of an ordinary boy who as a child got into the world of film, into the flashes of journalists’ cameras, into the fascinating whirlwind of filming, success, fame… And at the same time he remained normal.
In 1999, Tom Felton starred alongside Jodie Foster in the film Anna and the King, which takes place in 1962, when the young Englishwoman Anna Leonowens arrives in Bangkok, the capital of the Kingdom of Siam, with her son Louis, to become a teacher for King Mongkut’s children. | 20th Century Fox
Tom Felton describes ordinary boyish antics, but also complicated life moments. Experiences from filming as well as completely everyday days and feelings that we all experience regardless of whether the world media is interested in you or you are a completely anonymous person. Felton’s lines breathe humanity, not played, but sincere. He will win you over with his modesty, the impression that you are listening to the stories of an old friend. And it happens immediately. The pace of the narration is very welcoming, it almost doesn’t let you tear yourself away. And I believe that this biography will be read even by those who are otherwise indifferent to a similar genre and do not even have to be Potter fans. Tom Felton confirms his reputation as a man who doesn’t fight for the limelight, he just does what he likes. And it is precisely because of that naturalness that perhaps she shines more than the main Potter trio.
Rating: 90%
Tom Felton
With a Magic Wand: The Magical Adolescence of a Movie Wizard
Publisher: Prah, 2022
Number of pages: 408
How the annual meeting of the actors from the Harry Potter saga looked like: