Harry Potter Mania In London Ahead Of Final Premiere

London, July 07: Many hundreds of Harry Potter fans were camping out in Trafalgar Square in London on Wednesday night on the eve of the premiere of the final Potter film.

Some were set to spend their third night sleeping rough to ensure they get as close as possible to the stars of the movie - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - due to be screened for the first time on Thursday evening.

Fans spent hours queuing for a wristband that would allow them into a special Harry Potter “camp” in the shadow of Nelson's Column.

Some had flown across the world to be in London for the event.

“We've come all the way from Australia because of this,” said Shantelle Kerwin, 23, a student from North Queensland.

Another woman held up a banner proclaiming that she had come all the way from Argentina.

“I came from Buenos Aires, approximately 12,000 kilometres away, just to see Harry Potter,” said Sabrina Emilse, an English teacher from Argentina.

Americans and Canadians were also prominent among the crowd.

But most were English.

“Oh my God, I'm so excited,” screamed Catherine Dukes, 17, from Derby in the English midlands.

Meanwhile, the cast and crew of the films sat before the press in London Wednesday, saying goodbye to their characters on the eve of the premiere of the eighth and final film in the series.

However, Harry Potter himself - Daniel Radcliffe - was not present.  He's in New York appearing in the Broadway show “How to Succeed Without Really Trying.”

Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the films, told reporters she wasn't upset that the film hadn't won any awards because they won the hearts of the fans:

“The Harry Potter fans and Harry Potter readers, these books are just so loved and the fans of these books were the most discerning critics and the fact that they've really embraced the series that we made and there are pretty much no complaints, everyone seems to really love and think they are true to that. I just don't think there's any better reward than that - that we satisfied them.”

She also talked about kissing co-stars Radcliffe and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) in the last film.

“Well obviously kissing Dan (Radcliffe), kissing Harry (Potter) for that scene, you know, it's a figment of Ron's imagination - the worst possible thing that he could imagine, so the kiss obviously had to be passionate. I was half naked and covered in silver paint so that was pretty awkward. Kissing Rupert (Grint), also awkward.
 
We'd just been soaked by an enormous bucket of water, which was sort of perched—which we had to pretend we didn't know was going to hit us but we knew was coming—and that was also equally awkward and weird, so both strange situations to be in. Both were complete gentlemen. It's obviously hard to put our personal history to one side, considering that we did grow up together, but I don't think they'll mind me saying that once you've done it four or five times, kissing gets quite boring (laughs), genuinely,” she said.

Ralph Fiennes, who plays the villain Lord Voldemort, says he's had some favorite props from the films over the years.

“I liked my wand and I had some teeth - bad teeth,” but shared some uncomfortable moments with his costume.  “It was an irritating costume to wear. It was too long and sometimes I would trip over it and underneath I started off wearing tights and the gusset of the tights kept dropping down between my thighs and this made it very difficult to walk with any dignity. So eventually I said to my dresser - a lovely young man called Neil - I said ‘you're going to have to cut these tights and I'm going to have to have garters at the top.' So I enjoyed then having these garter belts on each leg and sometimes when the stunt team were getting too macho I would tease them with my inner thigh,” he explained.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” premieres Thursday in London.

It opens in U.K. and U.S. cinema on July 15th. AP