Monday, June 14, 2004 12:02 PM CDT
Charleston fan's trip to see ‘Harry Potter' full of surprises
By DAVE FOPAY, Staff Writer
Though she's just a Muggle, Katie Spoo got her share of magic, thanks to gifted witch Hermione Granger.
An autograph from Hermione -- OK, it was actually from Emma Watson, the young actress who portrays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies -- wasn't the only spell cast on Spoo.
Because of her timely visit to London and Watson's willingness to approach a crowd of movie-goers a second time, the Charleston native got to see the European premiere of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," the third movie based on J.K Rowling's enormously popular books about the young British wizard.
The showing was nearly a week before the movie's opening in the United States and included the bonus of having many of the film's stars and other celebrities in attendance.
"I was almost shaking," Spoo said of how she felt by the time it was all over.
Her attending the May 30 premiere wasn't by accident. Part of the longtime Harry Potter fan's plans for her trip to London was to be outside the opening to see stars and get autographs, though she only had tickets for the next day's showing.
"I knew I wouldn't be able to see the movie but I just wanted to go," Spoo said. Little did she know, though, that that expectation was no more accurate than most of Professor Trelawney's predictions.
Spoo got to London's Odeon Lester Square theater about 7 a.m., nearly 12 hours before the movie was to start. Still, she said, there were already a couple of hundred people there, and by the time the celebrities started arriving around 4:30 p.m., there were an estimated 5,000 fans in attendance.
"There were people from all over the world," Spoo said, and she met visitors from Germany, Mexico and Spain, as well as other Americans, and talked to people from Peoria before moving to a different spot for a better chance for autographs.
She ended up next to a London teenager named Josie and they became "friends for the day." As it turned out, that move was as lucky for Spoo as getting the Marauder's Map was for Harry.
While in London, Spoo bought a copy of the book version of "Prisoner of Azkaban" to have autographed, and her first autograph was from Devon Murray, who portrays Harry's classmate Seamus Finnegan.
"I was excited," Spoo said. "I was worried that they weren't going to come around."
One of her favorite autographs, and actors, was Alan Rickman (Professor Snape), who bypassed a pushy autograph-seeker to smile at Spoo and sign her book instead, and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) who seemed the most like "an average teen-ager."
"He kind of puttered around like they were making him do it," Spoo said.
Star Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) didn't get a chance to sign autographs because the crowd broke down the barrier when he arrived and he had to be led away. Spoo ended up being pleasantly surprised when she got Watson's autograph because she hadn't been too fond of the actress, thinking her acting didn't really fit the way the books portray Hermione.
"Out of the three (major stars), she was the most personable," Spoo said. "They had to pull her away."
Before it was over, Spoo's book also had the signatures of Warwick Davis (Professor Flitwick) and producer Chris Columbus.
Things started to "wind down" about 6:30 p.m. as the movie was scheduled to start. Spoo said she decided to wait outside the theater to see if Radcliffe might try to sign autographs again, but "about that time, everybody started screaming."
Watson had come back out of the theater, and a security guard accompanying her was holding what Spoo quickly realized were tickets to the movie. Watson eventually asked Spoo's new friend Josie how many people were with her, leading Josie to point to Spoo and say "just her."
"(Watson) said, ‘Enjoy the show' and handed them to us," Spoo said, and she and Josie were the last two people to get the free tickets of the 10 that Watson gave out.
Then, faster than you can say Expecto Patronum, guards whisked them into the theater, briefed them on rules such as no searching out the celebrities and seated them at the very back of the two-level theater. The view was fine, and about 10 minutes of applause followed the movie, according to Spoo.
After that, she "pretty much ran back to the hotel" to tell her story to her dad, Bob Spoo, Eastern Illinois University's football coach, who made the trip with her. He asked where she'd been, not expecting her to be gone so long, and all she could say was, "I saw it! I saw it!"
Next was a call home to mom, Susie Spoo, a teacher at Charleston Middle School and a fellow Harry Potter fan, who couldn't make the trip because the school year hadn't quite ended.
Spoo said she thinks "Prisoner of Azkaban" is the best Harry Potter movie so far, as the acting was better and she liked the different approach to the sets and photography that director Alphonso Cuaron took. The recent EIU grad, who plans to next attend veterinary school, said she began reading the Harry Potter books at her mom's urging shortly after the first one was published.
"I've always loved England anyway," she said. "It's so easy to read the books and so easy to become absorbed. I'm proud to say that I've got a lot of my friends addicted."
Contact Dave Fopay at dfopay@jg-tc.com or 348-5733.
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