AIDAN SMITH
MOST actresses I meet don't drink, or at least not in my company. It's always mineral water, always still, so much so that when one breaks with convention it's quite a shock.
But nothing could prepare me for Katie Leung, who not only orders a hot chocolate of all things, but asks for marshmallows as well. I'm so taken aback, I order the same myself, something I've not done since I was her age.
From nowhere - well, from Motherwell - Leung is about to burst on to the big screen as the girl who wins Harry Potter's heart, and this is her first major interview. She's just turned 18.
She'd already phoned ahead while I was waiting for her in the rain outside Glasgow's Millennium Hotel to tell me, really sorry, that she was running late, as the best actresses always are, and as a wide-eyed debutante plucked from 5,000 hopefuls, she's obviously learning her trade quickly.
Two minutes into our chat in one of the windows overlooking George Square and I'm thinking she's very confident for 18, very poised - what did I know at her age? Two minutes and five seconds in and I've got my answer: zilch.
Petite, pretty, with long dark hair and passions for Top Shop and hip hop, she's young and yet wise. She's girly, as you would expect and indeed hope, but also working hard on her sophistication. Sometimes when she speaks it's as if she's been buffed and finessed by the Warner Bros public relations machine; other times the sheer, knock-your-socks-off excitement of being plucked from her real school and parachuted into the most famous make-believe one - from Hamilton College to Hogwarts - comes across as exactly that.
"It was like a crazy dream, being on set, meeting all these famous people, I was so starstruck," she says. And every time she tries to compose herself - "I was quite a fan of the films," she says, putting it no stronger than that - she remembers something else about what it felt like to suddenly find yourself, like Robbie Coltrane, like Maggie Smith, like Daniel Radcliffe who plays Harry Potter, actually in the middle of them.
As all devotees of the boy wizard know, we're talking about film No4 in the sequence of big-screen dramatisations of the JK Rowling books - Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. Leung plays Cho Chang and hers is a small but crucial part. "Harry is developing into a teenager and so there's all that hormonal stuff going on," she says, as if far removed from such adolescent concerns herself.
Leung's role in the blockbuster has been the cause of much excitement among fans; rather too much in some cases. "Everyone's been asking me if I'm Harry's girlfriend; I'm not, I'm his crush. Cho already has a boyfriend and Harry can't go anywhere near me. So it's all just looking and teasing," she adds with a giggle.
But the extreme reactions to her appearance in the blockbuster have been rather less cause for amusement. After she landed the part, some "I hate Katie" websites sprang up and encouraged criticism of her. "I hate her because she gets to kiss Daniel Radcliffe," was probably the entry that got closest to the problem for these "fans". All very juvenile, and easily dismissed by an experienced actress; nevertheless unflattering comments about looks can hurt a self-conscious teenager.
Leung dismisses the websites with a shrug, then a grown-up answer. "This kind of stuff is inevitable because Dan has so many female fans - millions of them - so I'm nor 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."
Nevertheless, when she sat down in front of a mirror at the start of our chat, Leung quickly changed seats, explaining that she didn't like looking at herself. How, then, does she cope with seeing her image blown up 50ft high on the cinema screen?
"So far I've only seen trailers and it's so strange," she says. "I asked some of my Harry Potter friends and they said I looked good. But the person whose opinion I value the most is my brother Jonathan. He said I looked 'all right', which was good enough for me. He's been very supportive and I think he's very proud of me, although being my brother, he's obviously not going to tell me that!"
Some of the website vitriol came from fans of established Chinese and Korean actresses who mocked Leung's Scottish accent; but she can hardly be blamed if, as seems the case, the producers chose her precisely because of the Scottish-Asian mix.
"It was my dad who told me about the auditions," she says. "He found out about them from watching the news on a Chinese cable channel on TV. You had to be 16, which I was at the time, and of oriental appearance. The auditions were held in London and the first thing this casting director said when I got there was: 'Who's from Scotland?' I was the only one who put her hand up."
Leung had no previous acting experience, not even in a school play. "I've done some dancing but that's it." She reckons that, initially, this helped her relax. "I felt pretty confident but that was only because I was treating the auditions as a bit of fun. I'm not the kind of girl who's always dreamed of being an actress. I'm the shy type, really. At school I could go without talking to anyone for, I don't know, days and days. I was so shy it was unbelievable and it never occurred to me that I could get into this business. I always assumed it was only for really confident people."
Leung had no concept of what the auditions would be like. "It took so long to be seen - five hours." And she only started taking them seriously when she made it through to the last five. "Then when some of the cast turned up, and not only did I have to meet them but we had to do a drama workshop together, that was so nerve-racking.
"I didn't realise Mike [Newell], the director, was in the room at that time. I thought: 'Who's this guy walking about and distracting me?' Then when he asked me which drama school I was at and I said I wasn't, he went: 'Flippin' monkeys!'"
After winning the part, Leung had to keep it secret for two months. "That was really difficult because my friends kept asking me about if I'd got it and I had to say I was sure I hadn't. That was me acting, I suppose."
With Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson and David Tennant joining the adult ensemble, Goblet Of Fire was part-filmed in Glen Nevis, although Leung's work was confined to Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire. She was away for nine months, getting home to Motherwell at weekends, and received private tuition while studying for her Highers, eventually passing five - art, biology, chemistry, English and maths.
The fourth Potter spectacular is the one about the Triwizard Tournament. Leung's scenes revolve around the Hogwarts Yule Ball. The Great Hall is given a winter wonderland theme and Harry is anxious that he's not frozen out. Who will be his date? Leung's smile could melt an ice statue, but Cho Chang is Cedric Diggory's girlfriend and she must turn Harry down. "I think she's a really loyal person," Leung says of her character. "Harry plucks up so much courage to ask her to the dance but she's not unfaithful to her boyfriend and she rejects Harry, albeit in a regretful way."
Leung loved every minute of making the movie and has emerged from the experience with greater confidence. "I always had a problem with shyness at school and would never stick my hand up in class if I was stuck at something. I didn't want to be the centre of attention, all those eyes looking at me would have made me really nervous. I guess actresses use that adrenalin and it makes them do it better. Does that sound really stupid?"
No, it doesn't. But Leung isn't calling herself an actress just yet. Daniel Radcliffe was full of praise for her performance, describing her as a "natural". Cho and Harry's relationship develops in the later books, although Leung doesn't know if she'll be in the inevitable film versions.
But she takes everything in her stride on this wet west of Scotland afternoon and only gets slightly fazed by questions concerning her family (her parents are divorced). She may not call herself an actress but, in a short time, has learned quite a lot about the business.
"I'd like to do more acting but Goblet Of Fire was a great experience and I don't know if it would be like that all the time," she says. "If this turns out to be my only film then I think it would be pretty cool to be known as Harry Potter's first crush."
Smart girl, she also knows typecasting when it clunkily presents itself. After she reveals she wouldn't mind confounding expectations and playing a psychopath, I say I bet she wouldn't mind the next Charlie's Angels movie if Lucy Liu decided to step down.
"Well," she says with complete assurance, "I wouldn't want to be in a film because I'm Asian. I want to get respect as an actress."
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire is released on November 18
THE POTTER'S REEL
Mark Fisher looks at how Harry and chums keep us spellbound on screen
Name: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Release date: November 2001
Notable star turns: Zoë Wannamaker as Madame Hooch; John Cleese as Nearly Headless Nick; Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid
Story: Ten-year-old orphan Harry is living with his awful suburban relations, the Dursleys, who have not told him about his secret magical powers. Unbeknown to him, the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead was inflicted when he was a baby by the evil Voldemort (aka He Who Must Not Be Named) after he had murdered Harry's parents. After considerable effort by the wizarding world, the boy gets an invitation to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where he learns to play the aerial sport of quidditch and, with the aid of his chums Ron and Hermione, ventures down a forbidden corridor, home of the Philosopher's Stone, where he faces his old adversary once more.
Name: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Release date: November 2002
Notable star turns: Kenneth as Professor Lockhart; Alan Rickman as Professor Snape; Shirley Henderson as Moaning Myrtle
Story: Harry and Ron miss the Hogwarts Express to get to their second year at school and take a disastrous journey by flying car instead. Ginny, Ron's sister, finds the enchanted diary of Tom Marvolo Riddle and becomes possessed by it. Meanwhile, Mudbloods - children of Muggle or non-wizarding families - are being turned into stone by a monster which has escaped from the chamber of secrets. Harry discovers he is a Parsel-tongue - one who can talk to snakes - which helps him find his way down to the chamber where Ginny is lying fatally injured. Successfully defeating a fearsome serpent and lifting the spell, Harry takes one of the creature's teeth and stabs the diary, seeing off Riddle, whose name turns out to be an anagram of Voldemort.
Name: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Release date: May 2004
Notable star turns: Lenny Henry as Shrunken Head; Gary Oldman as Sirius Black; Dawn French as Fat Lady in Painting
Story: A mass murderer is on the loose and the Dementors - the creepy guards from Azkaban Prison - are on duty at school. Harry is warned that the escaped killer, Sirius Black, is after him. Under cover of his invisibility cloak, Harry heads to the nearby village of Hogsmeade, where he discovers that Sirius is his godfather. He later learns that he was framed and unjustly imprisoned. After various run-ins with shape-shifting teachers, werewolves and dragons, plus a handy spot of time travel, the children rescue Sirius and clear his name.
Name: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Release date: November 2005
Notable star turns: Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort; Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter; David Tennant as Barty Crouch Junior
Story: Voldemort's Death Eaters are making a comeback, displaying the Dark Mark in the air during the quidditch World Cup as a sign of his imminent return. Harry is chosen to represent Hogwarts in the inter-school Tri-Wizard Tournament, a competition of dangerous challenges such as taking a golden egg from a dragon's nest and picking up the trophy from a maze. The trophy turns out to be a port-key that transports Harry and his co-winner Cedric Diggory into a graveyard where Voldemort lurks. His adversary almost kills him but, once more, Harry escapes.