Harry Potter’s Evanna Lynch was disappointed she missed Tom Felton and Emma Watson’s crush on set. Lynch, who played Luna Lovegood in the fantasy series, joined the franchise in the fifth installment, The Order of the Phoenix. Luna’s zany nature provided comic relief early in the story, though she ultimately became a defender of the Wizarding World and a source of unconventional wisdom for Harry. She featured in some capacity in each of the following films, including in a pivotal storyline featuring her father Xenophilius in The Deathly Hallows.
With the early Harry Potter films featuring a young, teenaged cast, it might not surprise viewers that romance bloomed on set. Though the two played sworn enemies in the films, rumors have swirled for years about whether Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) were dating. Watson admitted in 2011 that she used to have a crush on her co-star, saying “for the first two movies, I had a crush on Tom Felton. He was my first crush”. The two posted a picture together on holiday in South Africa in 2019, causing further discussion about whether they were romantically involved. The rumor was ignited once more recently, with Felton commenting that he and Watson are "something, if that makes any sense.”
In an interview with Us Weekly, Lynch lamented missing out on the Watson and Felton crush phase. The Luna Lovegood actress said that while hormones may have been raging during the early films, including in The Goblet of Fire, things had calmed down by the time she joined the cast. Read her full quote:
“Oh, it was so disappointing for me because I joined on the fifth one. I was on Order of the Phoenix and there was this sense that exciting things had happened in the last movie, and I just missed it. [I joined when] everyone had kind of grown out of their crushes and they were moving on to, like, people in the outside world. And I felt that like, damn, I missed all the drama! It was so fun the last film, according to some stories. But no, by the time I got there, they were all mature and those hormones were calming down.”
The Ravenclaw actress will certainly pique fan interest with her comments about Felton and Watson and The Goblet of Fire. The fourth installment in the series was the most mature yet and coupled the cast up for a dance in the memorable Yule Ball set-piece. Although Potterheads can’t be sure what the “drama” was on set, the rumors about Felton and Watson dating will certainly be reignited. Harry Potter fans have long wished to explore the unlikely romance between Draco and Hermione, inspiring fan-fiction and TikToks in recent years. However, as Lynch says, The Order of The Phoenix introduced more adult storylines as the cast entered their fifth year at Hogwarts. By that point, on-set crushes had died down.
Although Lynch came late to the Harry Potter world, it was the perfect time for her to join. As a young girl, Lynch was hospitalized several times for anorexia and stated that the Harry Potter series was the only thing that kept her going through her struggle. After auditioning against 15,000 other actresses for the role of Luna, J. K. Rowling believed Lynch was the perfect choice for Lovegood. Fans have been invested in Lynch’s relationship with the character ever since, with the zany witch proving the heart of the later films.
Source: Us Weekly