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The interview came out as part of the latest issue of Total Film, which is doing a decent amount of looking back to the past, with Twisters as the cover feature. In it, they speak with a number of the people involved with the making of The Prisoner of Azkaban, which hit theaters on June 4, 2004.
“I speak often with Guillermo [del Toro], and a couple of days after, I said, ‘You know, they offered me this Harry Potter film, but it’s really weird they offer me this,’” Cuarón told Total Film. “He said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, you said you haven’t read Harry Potter?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s for me.’ In very florid lexicon, in Spanish, he said, ‘You are an arrogant asshole.’”
In the years since, Cuarón has written and produced a mix of awards-bait movies and tentpoles, with some of his best managing to get both critical and audience praise. Most notable are Gravity, Roma, and Children of Men.
David Heyman, a producer on all eight of Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter films, was the one who first brought up the idea of approaching Cuarón.
“I’d seen Y tu Mamá También, which I loved, and I oddly thought he’d be the perfect director for the third Potter,” Heyman told the magazine. “That’s not what some might think. Can you imagine what some thought Harry, Ron and Hermione would get up to, having seen Y tu Mamá También?…Y tu Mamá was about the last moments of being a teenager, and Azkaban was about the first moments of being a teenager. I felt he could make the show feel, in a way, more contemporary. And just bring his cinematic wizardry.”
