When Harry Met Cho
(June 16, 2007)
Source: Scotsman.Com

Kissing a boy is a big enough deal when you're a teenage girl. So those butterflies must have been turning somersaults when Katie Leung puckered up for this year's most hotly-anticipated cinematic smooch. Scots-born Katie plays Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw quidditch player who captures Harry Potter's heart in the fifth instalment of JK Rowling's series. With Amazon reporting one million pre-ordered copies of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the obsession with the teenage wizard shows no sign of diminishing.

So it's a no brainer that this year's big screen offering, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is set to become one of the summer's blockbusters. Especially with such a tantalising kiss to tempt cinemagoers. Nineteen-year-old Katie dissolves into girlie giggles when the "K" word is mentioned.

"Of course I was nervous about it," she says, her soft tones betraying a Motherwell twang. "I blame it on the crew because they made it impossible for me to forget. Every day, somebody would come up and say things like 'Are you looking forward to it?' Or 'Euwww, it's going to be really wet!'"

Luckily, co-star Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the eponymous wizard, admitted he was feeling just as anxious. His confession helped calm those frantic butterflies.

"He admitted that he was nervous too, which made me feel better because I was a bag of nerves," says Katie. "We joked around, saying 'Have you brushed your teeth?' and 'Have you eaten your mints?' So we were much more relaxed when we came to do it."

Katie was famously plucked from obscurity - and 5,000 other girls - three years ago to make her debut as the student who catches Harry Potter's bespectacled eye. Her rise to fame was even more astonishing when it emerged that she hadn't even had a walk-on part in a school play.

And her relative lack of experience when dealing with the publicity machine becomes endearingly obvious during our strictly allocated press time.

The hawk-like Warner Bros press officer - on hand to deflect unwanted questions from nosey journalists - swoops down immediately when I ask Katie to describe the kind of kiss the young sweethearts share. "We want to save that to surprise the audience," she instructs.

But Katie innocently answers the question anyway.

"It is supposed to be an awkward moment because it's Harry's first kiss," she says. "So it's very endearing and sweet. I think the director, David Yates, wants the audience to be taken back to the memories of their first kiss."

With her delicate doll-like features - all wide eyes and mirror-shine hair - it's not hard to see why Harry falls underneath her spell. But when she won the coveted role in 2004, several "I Hate Katie" websites sprung up.

A the time, Katie shrugged off the comments posted from fans possessed by the green-eyed monster. "That kind of stuff is inevitable because Dan has so many female fans - millions of them - so I'm not surprised some of them don't like me. But I don't think it's all based on jealousy. I'm not going to satisfy everyone's preconceptions of Cho."

But there were also uncomfortable undertones of racism. Some fans of established Chinese and Korean actresses poked fun at Leung's Scottish accent. This, despite the fact that Motherwell-born Katie was chosen precisely because of her Scottish-Asian heritage. And her casting had been sanctioned by Rowling herself.

Katie has her father Peter, a millionaire Hong Kong businessman, to thank for the part. After hearing about the search for Cho Chang on a Chinese cable channel, he whisked his daughter down to London to audition. Quite apart from leapfrogging so many others to the part, what makes Katie's story even more remarkable is that the fashion-obsessed teenager very nearly abandoned the whole thing to go shopping.

"I took one look at this huge queue and begged my dad to let us go shopping instead. Luckily, he insisted we stayed and I got my turn four hours later."

These days, Katie can shop to her heart's content in the capital city.

"I've just moved to London. Well, I am 19. A lot older. It's important for my independence," she says.

But for all of her brightness, it's almost like the teenager is trying to convince herself. "I couldn't live at home all of my life - although my parents are really protective - so you've got to move out some day, haven't you?"

So what will Katie miss most about Scotland, apart from her dad, her two brothers and sister? She's already used to dealing with distance between herself and mum Kar Wai Li, who moved back to Hong Kong after separating from Peter.

"The peacefulness," she says without hesitation. "I lived on the outskirts of Motherwell, in amongst the fields and stuff, and it's really difficult to get that kind of quiet in London."

Although many outside scenes featured in the £75 million film were shot in Scotland, Katie spent all of her time cooped up inside Leavesden Studios, near Watford.

The snow-capped mountains and glens that fill the breathtaking opening scenes can be found in Fort William. Further aerial shots were filmed in Glen Etive and Harry skims stones on Loch Shiel in front of the striking Glenfinnan Monument.

But most of Katie's scenes - including "The Kiss" - take place in The Room of Requirement, where the scholarly sorcerers learn the magical tricks of their trade. In breaks between filming, chocolate and favourite spells from the books were shared. So what was Katie's choice?

"I'm not fond of nosey people, so I loved the one in The Curse of the Half-Blood Prince. It is called Muffliato, and you cast it on people who are trying to listen in. It fills the ears of those near the witch or wizard with a buzzing that can't be heard by anyone else. It would be great to be able to do that one."

If Katie is suffering from any homesickness, she's doing a very good job of covering it up. And hooking up again with EastEnders actress Tiana Benjamin is a great distraction. The pair originally met on the set of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Tiana made a fleeting appearance. She's now a household name, thanks to her role as Chelsea Fox in the BBC soap.

The pair are trying to sort out dates for a serious vintage clothes-shopping mission to London's Portabello and Spitalfields markets.

Although Katie seems genuinely chuffed about her pal's good fortune and fame, she admits that she's not been that enamoured with her own experiences.

"I've had some odd people approach me," she says. "These old men - I think they were about 40 - shouted to me when I was outside Motherwell station. One shouted 'There's Harry Potter's girlfriend! Where's your wand?'

"I found it really strange because I would have expected their children to spot me, but not them."

You get the feeling that it is experiences like this that have contributed to Katie's change of heart about pursuing acting full time. When Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hit cinemas, she was positively giddy about a dazzling future on the big screen.

Despite gaining five Highers at £6,500-a-year Hamilton College, in Hamilton, her ambitions to go to university to study interior design were put on ice so that she could film Order of the Phoenix. Now, Katie seems to have had a change of heart as she reveals her plans to apply to several London Universities.

"I want to start in September, although I'm torn between graphic design or media," she says.

But is Katie just hedging her bets? She hesitates.

"I would love to carry on with the acting, but you're not guaranteed anything. It's very unstable - one minute it's up, the next it's down."

One definite plan in the near future is to visit her mother and her great, great grandmother in Hong Kong. She'll need the break after the whirlwind worldwide promotional tour.

Her eyes light up as she talks about it.

"I only get to see my great, great gran every five years or so," she says. "But Hong Kong is amazing, I love it. Every time I go back, my Cantonese improves a little bit. And the markets are just phenomenal. A lot of shopping goes on!"

Whether a Hollywood offer will materialise in the wake of her second outing as Cho Chan and turn her plans upside down again remains to be seen. In the meantime, Katie positively glows when she talks about her co-stars.

With each Harry Potter film, the star quotient sparkles even more brightly. And the fifth screen outing is no exception. Imelda Staunton is the personification of evil as new defence against the dark arts teacher Dolores Umbridge, hellbent on returning Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) to sinister supremacy.

"I was a little bit starstruck when I met her," says Katie. "I'd seen her in Vera Drake and thought she was amazing. But I properly despised her character in this film. Dolores is vile and it was incredible watching Imelda - who is so lovely - create this twisted person."

And Dolores isn't the only cloud of doom on the horizon. Despite locking lips with our hero Harry, Cho Chung is still grieving for ex beau Cedric Diggory.

In a shocking twist to the ending of the last film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the handsome young sorcerer lost his life in The Triwizard Tournament. With Cho struggling to accept Cedric's premature death - she is in equal turns depressed and angry - her relationship with Harry looks set for a rocky ride.

While Cho is sworn to secrecy - the press officer is circling again - about the eventual outcome of the young lovebirds' relationship, she's more than happy to talk about magic. Unsurprisingly, this girl is a firm believer in the supernatural art these days.

"Of course I think it's true," she grins. "When I beat all of those other girls to get this part, that felt like pure magic. I couldn't believe it was happening, so when it did, it felt like fate."

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is released on 12 July.

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