What Katie did
Source: Youth 2

HOW did an 18-year-old girl from Motherwell, Scotland, who’s never acted before beat 5000 other hopefuls to play Harry Potter’s love interest? Must have been magic. After all, that is exactly what Katie Leung did and in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire she gets to play Cho Chang. Leung’s character is a young bewitching wizardette who gets Harry so worked up that he turns into a bumbling teenager. Harry, however – lucky boy that he is – naturally gets to kiss the girl.

As for how she got the role, it was all thanks to good old dad who saw an advertisement on television one fine day. The ad wanted someone of Oriental appearance living in Britain. So Leung went to London, and waited for hours for her turn at fame. After a few weeks, they called her in and she went through a series of auditions and a screen test. Although Leung is a fan of the films and has read the first three Harry Potter books, she did not read The Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix where Cho Chang appears.

Katie Leung, on her role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: ‘... it feels great to be at the centre of a love triangle.’

Other than attending a drama workshop with the rest of the cast, Leung had diving lessons for the underwater scenes. She admitted in an interview that diving was a lot of hard work but she had a lot fun.

In another interview, Leung describes how filming the scene where Harry looks on longingly at Cho while Cho is out with her boyfriend, Cedric Diggory, was fun. In one report she was quoted saying: “The scenes where Daniel’s gazing at me from afar were really fun to film because you had to give him this look and tease him. I’m the girl he has a crush on. Cho has a date, Cedric, and wouldn’t feel right two-timing him. But it feels great to be at the centre of a love triangle.”

At the same interview in October, Leung – a college student – acknowledged that the whole thing of working on the successful Harry Potter franchise hasn’t hit her yet.

Even after attending the London premiere on Nov 7, all Leung could say was: “It’s really daunting, I can’t believe I’m here.”

At the same time, it hasn’t been a bed of roses. Some parties – probably jealous young girls – have sent in horrible, some racist, messages on various sites.

Taking this in her stride, Leung is more than determined to play Cho Chang ? she has even signed on for the fifth film Order of the Phoenix. Plus, in the film she gets to snog Harry, so take that all you detractors!

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