{"id":921483,"date":"2026-10-09T05:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T05:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921483\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T05:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T05:26:10","slug":"alfonso-cuaron-reflects-on-making-harry-potter-children-of-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921483\/","title":{"rendered":"Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n Reflects on Making Harry Potter, Children of Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn the impeccable filmography of Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n<\/a>, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban undoubtedly stands out a little. The film is beloved by fans as one of the strongest installments of the Harry Potter franchise, but it\u2019s also one of the few projects that the multi-Oscar-winning director of Gravity and Roma didn\u2019t develop and write himself.<\/p>\n

\n\tCuar\u00f3n admits he was \u201ca little reluctant to do it\u201d when the opportunity to take on the world of Harry Potter first came his way, but he says making the film was nonetheless one of the most rewarding experiences of his career.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking at the Busan International Film Festival<\/a> in South Korea on Thursday, Cuar\u00f3n said, \u201cIn many ways, Harry Potter gave me many things \u2014 one thing is two of the most beautiful years of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI learned so much,\u201d he continued. \u201cI had no idea about visual effects before, but then after Harry Potter it was like second nature. And the whole collaborative work with people who were at the very top of their games \u2014 the best production designer, the best cinematographer, like amazing people working together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCuar\u00f3n also suggested that the industry cachet he gained from the franchise film\u2019s success allowed him to pursue the passion project that has become one of his most acclaimed works among film buffs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI had written Children of Men<\/a> before, and nobody wanted to do it,\u201d he explained. \u201cThen I did Harry Potter, and after, I was able to make Children of Men. So, I have nothing but gratitude towards Harry Potter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tCuar\u00f3n made his first trip to South Korea this week to attend the Busan festival, Asia\u2019s leading cinema event, alongside his filmmaker son Jon\u00e1s Cuar\u00f3n, who is presenting his latest feature, Campe\u00f3n Gabacho, at the event. After attending an Imax screening of his contemporary sci-fi classic Gravity, the elder Cuar\u00f3n sat down for a master class discussion moderated by Korean director Yeon Sang-ho, best known internationally for his zombie movie sensation Train to Busan. The two directors became acquaintances after that film\u2019s success, with Cuar\u00f3n later executive producing Yeon\u2019s 2025 mystery thriller Revelations.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conversation caught Cuar\u00f3n in a reflective mood, with his observations offering as much life wisdom as insight into filmmaking craft.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYour films often feel extraordinarily precise and meticulously constructed, yet there is always a sense of life within the frame, as though something unexpected could happen at any moment,\u201d Yeon told Cuar\u00f3n, adding that he felt this quality particularly strongly in Children of Men. \u201cFor a director, do you think control and the unexpected are opposites to each other, or is it only through rigorous control that you can create the conditions to truly embrace the unexpected?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI tend to prepare a lot, and I tend to think and imagine the way that I want the film to be in my head \u2014 but then reality starts to shape it,\u201d Cuar\u00f3n replied. \u201cBut isn\u2019t life like that? In many ways, in our lives, we have ideas and expectations. But something I have learned is that if we want to hold onto our expectations against the reality that is presented, we create unhappiness, and also we create a disconnection with the process of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCuar\u00f3n said that age and experience have taught him \u201cto prepare and to be ready for things, but at the same time to accept what life brings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s when life takes you to incredible places that you would not have expected,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cIn that sense, I think the filmmaking process is very connected to the process of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCuar\u00f3n said his penchant for long takes \u2014 with Children of Men, again, boasting several of recent cinema\u2019s most famous examples<\/a> \u2014 derives from his interest in creating opportunities for instinct and \u201ccinematic miracles\u201d within a process of obsessive technical preparation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou prepare and you control in order for the unexpected to happen and to allow it to come to life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI like to shoot very long, continuous takes, because there\u2019s only so much you can control,\u201d he explained. \u201cThere\u2019s one thing that you can never control inside those shots, and that is time. Time is flowing completely differently from take to take. The positions, the relationship between actors and camera, and how the light is changing. That\u2019s also the reason I like to shoot natural light as much as possible, because of the accidents of light, the accidents of weather.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added: \u201cYou have a clarity of what you\u2019re looking for, and then life is just going to not give you that \u2014 it\u2019s going to give you something even better, something that you couldn\u2019t have thought of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCuar\u00f3n said he\u2019s also learned over the course of his career to recalibrate how he measures the success of his creative output, too.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe rule is that every time I finish a film, I try to dissect what I learned on that film \u2014 because I really believe that the only reason to make a film is for what you learn for the next one. Success has nothing to do with the results at the box office, or with critics or awards. It\u2019s about what you learned and how you grow as a filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn comments evocative of his recent social media posts in support<\/a> of his friend Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s frostily received new feature Digger, Cuar\u00f3n argued that a film\u2019s ultimate value takes time to be perceived.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI have to say that the film on which I learned the most is probably the film that was least successful on every single front,\u201d he explained. \u201cChildren of Men, when it was released, was a film that had very mediocre reviews. It was a box office flop. Nevertheless, nowadays it\u2019s the one that probably people talk about the most. So in that sense, [on] success, only time will tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYeon later told Cuar\u00f3n that when he began making films as a younger man, he did so \u201cin an attempt to understand the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut at a certain point,\u201d he added, \u201cfilmmaking made me realize just how little I understand about life. After making films for so many years, has your way of seeing the world become clearer, or has it become more ambiguous?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMore ambiguous, thank god,\u201d Cuar\u00f3n replied. \u201cWhen I was younger, film was everything, and life was only part of film. I guess, now, I embrace life more. Life is just incredible. Film, for me, remains a very important part, but it\u2019s just a part. It doesn\u2019t make the whole of life anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the impeccable filmography of Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban undoubtedly stands out a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[489245,64,63,12329,489246,134,3389,344],"class_list":["post-921483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-alfonso-cuaru00f3n","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-busan-international-film-festival","tag-children-of-men","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}