Motherwell girl Katie steals Harry Potter's heart
By Andy Dougan (November 4, 2005)
Source: Evening Times

KATIE LEUNG'S film debut is still a couple of weeks away but the young woman from Motherwell has already given what may be the performance of her life.

Last year Katie, who is now 18, was chosen from thousands of hopefuls to appear in the next Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Any part in this blockbuster series would be a coup for an actress but Katie has the key role of Cho Chang who, as all Potter fans know, is the object of Harry's affections.

And no matter how good she is on screen, Katie may never have been better than when she won the part. Once she got the good news from producer David Heyman she had to keep it to herself for two months.

"That was really hard," Katie recalls, "because my friends knew I had gone for the audition. They kept asking me about if I'd got it and I had to say I was sure I hadn't."

Depending on what you read Katie won the part against either 3000 or 5000 other aspiring Cho Chans. No matter what figure you believe those are still big odds to beat and there are times when Katie didn't quite believe it herself.

"Acting has never been a possibility in my career, because I never realised I could act until I got the part," she says. "I've done some dancing but that's it. That was on a school stage but I wouldn't consider that as acting or anything."

Katie, whose parents are divorced, lives with her father, her two brothers, and a sister in Motherwell. It was her father Peter who spotted the news about the audition on a Chinese cable station.

Harry Potter creator JK Rowling had apparently insisted that, just as Harry, Ron, and Hermoine had been, Cho Chan should also be played by an unknown. The casting criteria were the successful actress should be 16 and of Oriental appearance - two qualifications Katie happened to fit at the time. In the end she went to London and almost didn't go through with it.

"When I got there and saw the length of the queue I thought 'No way. Let's go shopping'," she laughs.

But as she points out she knew she was always going to go through with it otherwise she would never have made the long journey in the first place.

Given the numbers who turned out Katie had probably mentally written off her chances of getting the role, which may have worked in her favour.

She was relaxed and determined to treat the audition as a bit of an adventure.

In the end, it took almost five hours to get through the auditions that day. Katie herself only started to get nervous when she knew she was down to the final five.

"Then some of the other actors turned up," she recalls. "Not only did I have to meet them, but we had to do a drama workshop together. That was so nerve-racking."

Katie's relative innocence can be gauged by one story that she tells against herself. At one point she noticed a man wandering around looking at all of the actresses.

She wondered who he was because he was distracting her. As it happens, it was the director Mike Newell so it's probably just as well that she didn't complain.

Inevitably Katie is now braced for a huge amount of media attention.

This press day, in which she is being introduced to the media along with a number of other new young faces in the Potter cast, is only the tip of the iceberg.

There has already been some indication of what's in store with stories of internet hate campaigns being waged by jealous Potter fans against the girl who is Harry Potter's first love.

Whether the stories are true or not, Katie has no experience of any hostility.

"I don't know where people are getting that from because it's not true at all," she says. "I've been on the internet but there's nothing there.

"I don't receive hate mail or anything like that, I get a lot of fan mail, and they're so encouraging and supportive. I don't know where those stories come from."

With the release of the film less than a month away now Katie isn't quite sure what to make of things. She hasn't seen the film yet - just the trailers like everyone else - but she is excited. And she doesn't get recognised in the street, neither does she know quite what she will do when that happens.

But there is one thing she is certain of. Contrary to the way it is being depicted in some areas - she is not Harry Potter's girlfriend.

"Everyone's been asking me if I'm Harry's girlfriend; I'm not," she says emphatically, "I'm his crush. Cho already has a boyfriend - it's Cedric Diggory - and Harry can't go anywhere near me.

"I think she's a really loyal person," she continues. "Harry plucks up so much courage to ask her to the dance but she's not unfaithful to her boyfriend and she rejects Harry, albeit in a regretful way."

So far Katie has been able to combine acting with her normal life. She took her A-levels while she was filming at Leavesden Studios just outside London - like all of the young cast members she had a private tutor - and now a career beckons. She got five A-levels but confesses she would like to continue acting.

"This film was a great experience and I don't know if it would be like that all the time," she says warily. Then she smiles for a moment as she contemplates her future.

"If this turns out to be my only film," she says, "then I think it would be pretty cool to be known as Harry Potter's first crush."

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