Skip to footer

J.K. Rowling: Dumbledore 'was the ... hardest to leave'

In a video on 'Good Morning America' celebrating the 15th anniversary of the release of the 'Harry Potter' books in the US, Rowling singles out Dumbledore as the 'Potter' character she misses the most. 

|
Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
J.K. Rowling also recently released a new novel, 'The Cuckoo's Calling,' under a pseudonym.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

J.K. Rowling recently appeared in a video which aired on “Good Morning America” to celebrate the 15th anniversary of her “Harry Potter” series. During the clip Rowling reveals that the character she misses the most from her years of writing the "Potter" books is wise wizard Albus Dumbledore. If he could meet any real person, says Rowling, it should be his author.

“I'm afraid I'm going to be very selfish, and if anyone gets a shot, it's me,” says Rowling. "It's a difficult question and I have mulled it over at length, and I've considered world leaders who may benefit from some of his calm wisdom, but finally decided there's really only one person who should meet Dumbledore and I think that's me.”

She also says that she feels that the character’s lines came from “the back of her head.”

“Sometimes he said things and told Harry things that I only knew I knew or believed until … I saw that I had written them down in the voice of Dumbledore," says Rowling. "He was the character who was hardest to leave for me. He was the person who I'd have come back physically and sit and talk to me. It would be Dumbledore.”

The interview was filmed for Scholastic, the “Harry Potter” publisher, and debuted on “Good Morning America.” (As noted by the website Hypable, it may have been taped originally for a live chat the author did last year but did not appear to have been used during the chat.)

To further celebrate the anniversary of the series, the “Potter” novels recently got a makeover. New paperback copies with covers created by writer and artist Kazu Kibuishi hit bookstores yesterday and are available individually and as a box set.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to J.K. Rowling: Dumbledore 'was the ... hardest to leave'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0828/J.K.-Rowling-Dumbledore-was-the-hardest-to-leave
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe