Eating slugs all in a day's work

When you're a movie star you get to do all sorts of interesting things.

Like learn how to speak to snakes in their own language and eat slugs.

That's what happened to young Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, who are back on our screens as Harry Potter and his pal Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second in the blockbuster series of adventures about the junior wizards at Hogwart's Academy.

A couple of Daniel's favourite scenes included the duelling scene between Snape and Gilderoy Lockhart (played by Belfast-born Kenneth Branagh) ... and the challenge of the Parseltongue scene: "It was in a completely different language because I had to speak to the snakes. It was hard to get a hold on at first, but I got used to it in the end."

For Rupert it was the slug scene: "That was brilliant. They actually tasted really nice because they were all different flavours ... orange, lemon, peppermint and chocolate!"

The two - and co-star Emma Watson, who plays Hermione - are determined to continue playing their characters in future H.P. films, in spite of them even now looking more grown up than in the first Philosopher's Stone. Daniel, for instance, reckons he could make it through until the fifth film.

In the Chamber of Secrets, the trio are involved in more magical adventures that will captivate audiences. This film, says director Chris Columbus, who himself is stepping down from behind the cameras, is grittier, tougher and leaner since he had learned a lot making the first one: "What I found from the first film allowed me to use more visual freedom the second time around. We are still sticking strictly to J.K. Rowling's ethos, we're not turning the world upside down ... but I now know and understand visual effects better."

Daniel also loved all the action scenes and in several of them he did all his own stunts: "In the scene when I'm hanging out of the car window, that was actually me. I was dangling 25-30 feet in the air ... of course, there are some stunts they won't let me do!"

He had to do some workouts to keep up with the demands of the story: "I've had to do more physical training to be able to do the climbing and the sword-fighting."

The fact that the Chamber of Secrets is more scary than the first film didn't worry Daniel too much: "I was fine with it. I liked it and the fact that it was a darker, more edgy film. If you take away the darkness that is in the book, then you haven't done it justice."

And at the all-star bash to launch the movie for the world's press - with London's famous Guildhall turned into Hogwart's Great Hall - the question which brought a blush to the face of Emma concerned which of her co-stars she preferred. Diplomatically, she replied: "I can't say who Hermione would choose in the film, and as for real life, I'm much better at arranging other people's love lives."

Quick note for the trio's army of fans ... Daniel says he's flattered by all the fan letters he gets, but neither he nor Rupert have girlfriends!