-> 

v

"I get letters that say ‘Stop being evil to Harry or we’ll go to Hogwarts and kick your butt.'"

 -> 

v

The villains get to have all the fun. The hero of the movie has to be righteous, they have to learn and grow, they have to be a role model. The villain gets to scream, shout, sneer, seethe and generally have a heck of a time hamming it up. Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy created one of the all time great badguys in the Harry Potter film series (2001-11), the kind of villain that audiences loved to hate, with some even holding it against the actor himself.

"I think it's more fun, there are a lot of goodies in the film and not a lot of baddies, so I like to be in the baddie group."

 -> 

v

Born To Be Bad

Born September 22, 1987 in Epsom, just southwest of London, to parents Sharon and Peter Felton, Tom Felton proved a talented singer from a young age, joining the Guildford Cathedral Choir while attending school a Cranmore and then Howard of Effingham School. This "posh" upbringing would turn out to be very helpful when it came time to play the snobbish, stuck-up Draco Malfoy. While the real Tom Felton is as down to earth as any member of the Harry Potter cast, he certainly met his share of real-life Malfoys with a tendency to look down their nose at the world.

 -> 

v

"Daniel Radcliffe and I get along really well off set so it's really fun filming."

Felton began his acting career with TV commercials for companies like Commercial Union and Barclaycard, and then featured in The Borrowers (1997) and provided his voice for the TV show Bugs (1998). Before being cast in Harry Potter he would share a screen with Jodie Foster in Anna and the King (1999) and Clive Owen in Second Sight (1999). Before being cast as Malfoy Felton would already have enjoyed an impressive list of credits and co-stars, but of course, it was Harry Potter that truly made him a star.

 -> 

v

In 2001 Felton was cast in the first of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), having actually auditioned for the lead, but being deemed to be better suited to the villain role. Not that Felton minded this twist of fate at all. "What twelve year old wouldn't want to play an evil wizard?"

For most of the next decade, the Harry Potter series would dominate Felton's career, comprising all of his film credits between 2001 and 2007, before featuring in The Disappeared (2008). Between the final two Potter films Felton found time for a cameo in Get Him to the Greek (2010) and to feature in the short film White Other (2010), but by and large 2001 to 2011 would be one long run of Harry Potter movies one after the other, with audiences getting to watch the cast grow up before their very eyes. Malfoy in particular only seemed to grow more devious and sinister with every new entry into the series until Felton had come of age as one of the great villain actors of his generation.

 -> 

v

"I have had input into Draco. If they give me a line and I do not think it is something he would say, I suggest changing it. They do listen to you and you do feel a part of it."

After Harry Potter

Felton's first film role after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011) was a small but integral role in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) as a cruel caretaker for the ape protagonists. Many cast members from the Potter films suffered a kind of "Star Wars Syndrome," that is, they were so closely associated with their characters from the series that made them stars that it became difficult to find meaningful work afterwards. Felton featured in a number of small roles in big films and big roles in small films, not quite getting the big role in a big film that would help him transition his success with the Potter films into similar success as an adult. At least, not until Belle (2013), a period film following the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle. The film helped to establish Felton as, if not a leading movie star of his time, one of the strongest actors of his generation.

DC fans will of course remember Felton in the role of Doctor Alchemy on the third season of the CW series The Flash (2016-17), and British film fans should be familiar with his roles in A United Kingdom (2016) and the action thriller Stratton (2017).

Outside of acting, Felton spends as much time in nature as possible. In particular, he's an avid carp angler, having helped to form the World Junior Carp Tournament, an angling tourney for teens.

"There are a couple of carp fishing books I've been reading. I'm very interested in that line of books, because I think they write very well, carp anglers, about the general environment."

As a singer, Felton has released the singles "Silhouettes in Sunsets" (2008), "If You Could Be Anywhere" (2010), and "Time Isn't Healing" (2008), as well as four extended play albums, Time Well Spent and All I Need, both in 2008, In Good Hands (2009) and Hawaii (2011). He made his directorial debut with the interview special Tom Felton Meets The Superfans (2015). While Felton has not held as many major leading roles in Hollywood films as the three protagonists of the Harry Potter films, he has developed a strong reputation as a versatile actor.

"Whatever life throws at me I'll take it and be grateful for it as well."