For the third film, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” the prosthetic Hagrid head became even more advanced, with a voice-activation system that would move Hagrid’s mouth as Martin Bayfield delivered his lines. Bayfield and Robbie Coltrane both had to learn how to mimic each other’s movements to make Hagrid come together on screen. Discussing the Hagrid heads, Coltrane said, “My sister completely freaked out when she saw them. She saw a row of five of them. And she’s sitting beside me; she’s going, ‘Oh my God!'”
What was even more frightening about the dead head and Hagrid body suit was that Bayfield had to use them on the very first day of filming “Sorcerer’s Stone,” all while paparazzi were trying to get the best shots they could of the highly anticipated film. Describing the day, Nick Dudman explained, “We put an umbrella over his head, desperately trying for his face not to be seen.”
These types of practical effects, which were common in the early-2000s movie-making era, have mostly been replaced by CGI. So, among the many things fans are excited to see in Max’s “Harry Potter” TV series, it will be interesting to see how some of these effects in the original films, such as Hagrid’s enormous size, are recreated with new techniques.
