Tom Felton reminisced this week about a time when Alan Rickman was a complete accio-hole to him — in the most loving way possible.
The Harry Potter star, who played the entitled Draco Malfoy in the film franchise, shared a story about the late Die Hard actor in which Alan made Tom as nervous as Ron Weasley around spiders.
The incident occurred during a night shoot for a scene in 2009’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in which Felton and a group of Death Eaters — essentially the Wizarding World equivalent of Nazis — are following Alan, aka Professor Severus Snape, through Hogwarts.
Alan was wearing a long cloak during the scene, and gave Tom a severe warning before a take.
“Eventually I was told in no uncertain terms by Alan Rickman, ‘Don’t step on my fucking cloak,’” Tom recounted in an Instagram video. (The actual expletive is bleeped out in the video.) “I sort of giggled. The Death Eaters and I looked at each other and thought, ‘Is he joking?’ It quickly became apparent: He’s definitely not joking.”
The situation got even more riddikulus, Tm said, when director David Yates asked him to “walk as close as [he] can to Alan” in the scene. Felton said the take went smoothly until they “got about halfway through the Great Hall”… and Tom stepped on Alan’s robe.
Tom said Alan “turned around and gave me a look you never, ever want to see.”
Considering that Alan’s Snape was a cold authority figure with a sharp tongue and an intimidating leer, it’s hard not to feel for Felton, who was just a kid at the time.
But Tom said in his video he understood why Alan would be upset.
“You have to bear in mind his cloak’s attached around his neck — I nearly killed the poor man!” he said.
Thankfully, in the next take Tom said “someone else” accidentally stomped on Snape’s cape.
“That kind of took the heat away from me,” Tom quipped. “But I’ll never forget those words: ‘Don’t step on my fucking cloak.’”
Stephen Lovekin via Getty Images
Felton shared the story to promote his new memoir, “Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard.” But he’s told the story before, speaking to a much smaller audience at the 2019 London Film & Comic Con.
In a Q&A with fans there, Tom expressed affection for Rickman, who died in 2016. But he admitted Alan was also the person on set he was “scared most of,” because “he stays in character pretty much the whole time.”
“I remember, there was once we were night shooting, and he’s just standing there, ominously. And eventually I plucked up the courage to say ‘Are you all right, Alan?’” Tom said. “And he just turned, ever so slowly, and just ― ‘I’ve peaked.’”
Tom said that he remembered “not laughing at the time.”
“And then I realised it later: He was a very funny man.”
