The Best Time Emma Watson Ever Broke Character In The Deathly Hallows

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 1" was the beginning of the end for the "Harry Potter" movies. Over the years, the movies had gotten progressively darker as the characters matured, lives were lost, and the Dark Lord Voldemort came closer to taking over the Wizarding World. Still, despite the departure from the early days of pure delight at magic, one thing never changed: The cast breaking into giggle fits on set. Even after years of playing Hermione Granger, Emma Watson still couldn't hold a straight face through one particular scene.

It's late in the movie, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione visit Luna Lovegood's house and meet her dad, Xenophilius (Rhys Ifans). He tells them about the three magical items called the Deathly Hallows but then tries to hand the trio over to the Death Eaters in exchange for his daughter. It's a somber scene, dimly lit and heavy with the weight of Luna's absence, but for Watson, that tone took a great deal of work to maintain.

While filming the scene, Emma Watson simply could not stop breaking into giggles. Luna's absence and Xenophilius' impending betrayal made for a lot of tension, or, as actor Rhys Ifans put it: "There's these scenes where we have these kind of very embarrassing English pregnant pauses and they're always the kiss of death for an actor." Just the sound of slurping at their drinks was enough to set Watson off. In British terms, this breaking into unintentional laughter in the midst of a scene is called "corpsing."

Watson corpsed so much that she was given a red card as a penalty. In a behind-the-scenes interview, Watson said that she usually doesn't have problems with corpsing, but that something about this scene really got her. "I just couldn't keep it together," she said. Usually, Rupert Grint, who plays Ron, was the serial offender and Watson was the "class pet," as she put it. "Luckily, Rhys is a very nice guy and found the whole thing amusing," Watson said. "He actually nicknamed me 'Giggles' at the end of the three days."

Eventually, though, she made it through and the final take is very serious. By the time she was going through her worst filming experience for "Deathly Hallows — Part 2," that scene probably looked like a piece of cake.