‘Harry Potter’ filmmakers on why Snape’s death scene was changed

Filming Snape's death scene
In Deathly Hallows Snape dies in the Hogwarts boat house, not the Shrieking Shack.

The location of Snape’s death in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has been changed from the Shrieking Shack to a new boat house set. Art director Andrew Ackland-Snow explains the change:

‘The art director, Andrew Ackland-Snow, described to us another set created for the film. […] “We also made the boat house. We wanted to change a bit where Snape dies. In the book, he dies on the Shrieking Shack, and we wanted to get him out from, not a conventional interior, but from that kind of box, to do it in a more dramatic atmosphere. We asked J.K. if she agreed for that to happen in there, because we hadn’t really seen it before. We made a crystal house, and you can see what happens in the boat house from there – Are you listening Harry? -, but also the school is in flames…and she loved it. Besides, it’s a very romantic place to die. Snape dies in a extremely good way, I gotta say.’

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