20 years later, the director of the best Harry Potter movie recalls how Guillermo del Toro’s forthright advice made him take it on

Director Alfonso Cuarón may not have been the most obvious choice for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban given that his most recent work at the time was Spanish-language sex drama Y tu mamá también.

As it turns out, it was actually Cuarón who was less than familiar with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – and his nonplussed reaction to being offered the job led to some forthright advice from fellow filmmaker Guillermo del Toro.

“I was confused because it was completely not on my radar,” Cuarón tells Total Film in our new issue out on Thursday May 23, which features Twisters on the cover.

“I speak often with Guillermo [del Toro], and a couple of days after, I said, ‘You know, they offered me this Harry Potter film, but it’s really weird they offer me this.’ He said, ‘Wait, wait, wait, you said you haven’t read Harry Potter?’ I said, ‘I don’t think it’s for me.’ In very florid lexicon, in Spanish, he said, ‘You are an arrogant asshole.'”

David Heyman, producer on all eight Potter movies, recalls a surprisingly open approach to his pick for director and what he could bring to the table.

“I’d seen Y tu mamá también, which I loved, and I oddly thought he’d be the perfect director for the third Potter,” Heyman says.

“That’s not what some might think. Can you imagine what some thought Harry, Ron and Hermione would get up to, having seen Y tu mamá también?… Y tu mamá was about the last moments of being a teenager, and Azkaban was about the first moments of being a teenager,” Heyman notes. “I felt he could make the show feel, in a way, more contemporary. And just bring his cinematic wizardry.”

You can read more about the look back at Prisoner of Azkaban and a whole lot else besides in the new issue of Total Film when it hits shelves and digital newsstands on Thursday, May 23.

Check out the covers below:

Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos on the covers of Total Film's Twisters issue — (Image credit: Future)

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