Director Chris Columbus, who helmed the first two films in the Harry Potter franchise, recently revealed that the main reason he cast his daughter in the films but didn't let her speak was because she isn't British.

"It's interesting because I luckily said all the right things to [Harry Potter author J.K.] Rowling in our first interview," Columbus told The A.V. Club. "First, I explained how I was going to shoot the film and how it was going to look, and she said, "That's exactly the same way I see it." The director also shared that, from the beginning, he promised Rowling that the cast should be entirely British.

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"I mean, my own daughter is in the movie. She plays Susan Bones. She was 11," Columbus recalled. "She's in 60 or 70 days of the first movie and the same in the second movie. She didn't utter a word because she’s not British, so we stuck to our guns in that respect."

Fans of the Harry Potter book series will recall that Susan Bones was a classmate of Harry Potter and also belonged to Gryffindor House. She was a member of the prominent Bones wizarding family, who had strong connections to the Ministry of Magic. Columbus' daughter Eleanor portrayed the character in both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). After he departed the franchise, however, the Susan Bones character did not appear in the remaining six films.

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Columbus also revealed during the conversation that, ahead of his exit as director, he assumed he would direct every film in the Harry Potter franchise. "Yeah, because at the time I thought I would be directing all seven, not having realized how exhausting directing the first two would be -- physically, mentally, not seeing my family," he said. Columbus ultimately opted out of directing 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which was helmed by Alfonso Cuarón but served as a producer on the third film.

While Columbus wasn't directly involved with the remaining films in the franchise, he is set to reunite with several of the films' stars for the upcoming 20th-anniversary special Harry Potter: Return to Hogwarts. The special will feature appearances by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Isaacs, Gary Oldman, Imelda Staunton, Tom Felton, James Phelps, Oliver Phelps, Mark Williams, Bonnie Wright, Alfred Enoch, Matthew Lewis, Evanna Lynch and Ian Hart. Harry Potter: Return to Hogwarts will debut on HBO Max on Jan. 1, 2022.

The entire eight-film Harry Potter collection is currently streaming on Peacock.

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Source: The A.V. Club