Discover the secret that made Hagrid look even taller on screen

In the franchise of “Harry Potter”, one of the characters most loved by fans was Hagrid, the gamekeeper and guardian of the keys and grounds of Hogwarts, who becomes one of the best friends of the main trio, and is an impressive 3.5 meters tall.

Hagrid was played by Robbie Coltrane, an actor who passed away at the end of last year at the age of 72, and who was 1.85m tall. But, have you ever wondered how the production of the film made the performer manage to convey the illusion of being two meters taller than his original height?

Special effects

To bring the half-giant, half-human character to life, a great mix of special effects and characterization was created, with the special participation of a body double. The person responsible for this function was Martin Bayfieldwho is 2.09 m tall, and was chosen to be the body double of Coltrane.

Bayfield I made the recordings wearing a costume that weighed 30kg and was very hot. So that the stuntman would not get sick, and for his health, the suit was equipped with its own cooling system, full of tubes filled with ice-cold water.

As reported by UOL, Nick Dudmanwho was in charge of the franchise’s makeup and special effects, was the person who came up with the idea of ​​using a stunt double to portray Hagrid.

“In the first film, I was told, ‘Robbie Coltrane is going to be Hagrid, great. But we’re probably going to have to digitally insert him into every scene, and it’s going to be one of the most expensive parts of the film’. There was a lot of concern. So I suggested the use of a stunt double for the scenes where he has his back turned and for the children’s scenes, where you only see half of Hagrid’s body.”, said Nick in an interview.

When putting on the costume, Martin it reached an impressive 2.30 meters in height. To give the impression that he was even taller, different camera and perspective tricks were used. Furthermore, to make the illusion even greater, the director Chris Columbus made a request to his team: he didn’t want to know how the costume was made.

Also in an interview for a collector’s edition of the films, Bayfield revealed that, over the years, Hagrid’s costume became increasingly technological. While in the first film it was just a “dead head”, made of fiberglass and silicone, in the second it already had eyes and a mouth that moved, while in the third the item had voice recognition, where the mouth moved according to he said the lines.