Hypable sat down with David Yates last week at the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesden, and talked to him about the legacy of the films and how the Tour celebrates their achievements.

At the press event last Thursday, we participated in a round-table interview with the Potter director. In the interview, Yates talked about the challenges of working on the films, the legacy of Jo Rowling’s work, Dan Radcliffe establishing himself as an actor, the theme park, and much more.

You can also read the separate bits we released from this interview, in which Yates compares the Tour to the theme park and discusses cutting Dumbledore’s funeral scene.

Q: Are you proud of the big part you’ve played in adapting the story?

I am proud, of course. It’s lovely to be associated with this world, and these stories which are fantastic. Wherever I travel, I’m always amazed at how they reach out to so many people. And because we made the movies here and we’re a very insular family, it was a weird experience going to the premiere, seeing thousands and thousands of fans screaming. So I’m proud of the films, and I think they’ll sort of last, you know? I think they’ll be watched for some years to come, I hope, because these stories are cherished by so many people.

Q: How does it feel for you as a director to see that your work is going to be preserved in this Tour?

I like this, I think it’s great. I think it’s a really tasteful, thoughtful, intuitive presentation of work. It has a real integrity about it, and I think it’s great that, just looking at some of these designs, this is the infrastructure of how you make a film. I think there’s real educational value in there, and there’s a real curiosity value in that. I think is a very genuinely educational experience.

Q: What are some of the challenges for you to turn a much-loved property into something on screen? Did you work with JK Rowling?

Yeah, Jo Rowling was always very supportive and graceful, and she would always let us develop the scripts, and then she’d let us read them shortly before we would shoot them. She’d have several notes, always very helpful, but she was never territorial. The books were so loved that she had nothing to prove, and she trusted David Heyman, she trusted the directors who came in, and she was always very respectful.

Q: How have you dealt with the backlash from fans?

There are always challenges, you always want the people who love this world to love the movies, and some of them are very vocal, but honestly all I could do is act on instincts that I felt were right. And people would often complain we were taking things out, but you have to. A movie has its own rhythms, and so I had to apply filmmaking rhythm rather than novel writing rhythm. And I think the fans kind of came round, you know, eventually. Some of them hate certain movies, love other movies, I can never quite predict that, it’s weird. But what can you do when you’re dealing with something that’s as precious to them as this? You just do your very best. And the fact is, we were all fans. So none of it was done cynically or opportunistically. We just wanted to do the best movies possible.

Q: You said there was this very familial feeling on set…?

There were no egos. It was very… there was a real collective, nice atmosphere. Very positive, very constructive. Big movies can sometimes get very political, sometimes when you walk onto a big film set the atmosphere can be really horrible. These movies weren’t like that, everyone got on really well. There was a really positive atmosphere, and a sense of mutual respect. ‘Cause the films were successful, and that gave everyone kind of a confidence, fundamentally. And Dan Radcliffe’s amazing, his courage and his drive to accelerate away from this is really inspiring, and amazing. I saw him on Broadway, and he was just fantastic. And he had the audience in the palm of his hand. He’s not letting the world define who he is or what he can be, Daniel Radcliffe is defining that.

Q: Coming on as the fourth director, did you feel like you were sort of putting new paint on an old painting? Or did you feel like you made it your own?

There’s a bit of everything really, because absolutely, there are some sets that stayed completely the same. The Common Room for example, was the Common Room in film one and the Common Room in film six. But then we created new sets, like the Ministry of Magic, which is a brand new world that we’d never seen before. We created sequences that didn’t exist in the book. Like in film six, there’s this chase in the reeds as the Death Eaters tried to capture Harry, that never existed in any of the books, but I felt we needed an action sequence at that point in the story to just break up the rhythm slightly. So what you do is you end up contributing to the world, and building it, and extending it. And my job really was to make the world darker, more complex, more emotional. And grow the series up, and that’s what I did.

Q: Do you have a lot of new projects lined up?

I’ve got a whole range of stuff that I’m doing, and I’m looking forward to them all. I’ve got this wonderful western called A Reliable Wife, which is quite sexy and dangerous, and thrilling, set in Wisconsin and Saint Louis, and it’s a kind of really powerful mythic, and it’s a really iconic, old-fashioned western with lots of sex and violence. But it’s really intense and it’s very emotional. It’s very exciting.

Q: What does the future look like for the Harry Potter franchise?

I think the whole Potter thing will roll on, it’ll be mums and dads who love the books who’ll give it to their kids, and the kids will eventually hopefully be hypnotised by the world. They’ll watch the movies, and then they’ll probably wanna come here. And it’s such a testament to Jo Rowling’s extraordinary imagination. There’s something timeless about this world and about these characters and about this series that I think will probably be around for a while, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. That doesn’t happen very often. There’s something more about these characters and these stories, that kind of all hold a place in people’s imaginations and in their hearts for longer. And the biggest, weirdest, most wonderful thing is, there’s a generation that’s grown up with this stuff, and it’s been a part of their lives for such a long time. And then there’ll be subsequent generations who discover it.

Q: As the series went on, obviously the children who loved the series grew up. Did you try to appeal to them or more to the younger audience?

[Because of the grown-up fans] that was why it was important to make them a bit more grown-up, and to make them a bit more emotionally complicated, cause we all get emotionally complicated the older we get.

Q: Which is your favourite Potter film?

I always loved Prisoner of Azkaban, because I think Alfonso [Cuaron] is a gifted filmmaker, and I always love whatever he does. He’s very special. But my favourite is Deathly Hallows – Part 2, ’cause I made it (laughs).

For more exclusive Harry Potter Studio Tour coverage, check out our interview with Leavesden Studio director Dan Dark, and watch our red carpet interviews with Rupert Grint, Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, and Warwick Davis.