10 Fun Facts About 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'!

We never saw Voldemort in this book/movie, but Prisoner of Azkaban is definitely one of my favorite Harry Potter installments. The movie is particularly good, and I wanted to write ten fun facts about the film.

1. Director Alfonso Cuáron had the three main actors write essays from the perspective of their character.

In order to prove that actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson all understood their roles, director Alfonso Cuáron told them to write essays in the perspective of their characters, and the results were surprisingly accurate.

Watson, in true Hermione fashion, wrote an extremely long essay that ended up about 16 pages long. Radcliffe wrote a simple one-page essay and Grint never turned his in, remarking that Ron would do the same.

2. The Knight Bus scenes were filmed in a unique way.

In order to make the Knight Bus look like it was going much faster than the other cars, they filmed the bus going at normal speed with all the other cars on the road going at snail's pace, and edited the footage from there.

When filming the scene where we see the students sleeping in the Great Hall, Radcliffe asked for his sleeping bag to be placed next to a girl he had a crush on. Alan Rickman, the actor who plays Snape, wanted to pull a prank on him as a result.

Rickman put a fart machine inside Radcliffe's sleeping bag, and Michael Gambon (who plays Dumbledore) activated the machine during the take, making the cast and crew laugh.

4. The Astronomy room was filmed in the same set as Dumbledore's office.

Near the end of Chamber of Secrets, we see Dumbledore's office. Cuáron liked the set and wanted to use it in the film, but there were no scenes that required the set.

So the set was redecorated and used in the scene where Lupin teaches Harry how to cast a Patronus. This room was the Astronomy room, and the set was remodeled to be Dumbledore's office again in later installments.

5. Newt Scamander's name appears on the Marauder's Map.

In one of the shots of the Marauder's Map, you can see Newt Scamander's name on the map.

As we know, Newt Scamander ends up as the protagonist of the Fantastic Beasts series, and on a semi-related side note, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald comes out this November.

6. The trio doesn't wear their school robes during the film's climax.

In the first two films, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are almost always seen wearing their school robes. And though they still wear their robes during classes in this film, Cuáron wanted to let the characters wear normal clothes to show their personalities more.

He also allowed the extras to wear their school robes however they wanted, which is why some have their ties and shirts hanging out, and others wear their uniforms more neatly.

7. Ian McKellen was considered for the role of Dumbledore.

After the original Dumbledore actor, Richard Harris, died in 2002, the role of Dumbledore had to be recast. Ian McKellen was approached for the role, but having just portrayed Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, he stated, "I had enough trouble living up to one legend. Two would be too much to hope for."

He also didn't want the role because Harris had previously called him a "dreadful actor," and the role eventually went to Michael Gambon.

In the original script, Hermione was supposed to slap Draco in the face. Actor Tom Felton told Watson to slap him, but when they filmed the scene, he was taken by surprise when Watson actually punched him in the face as hard as she could.

Watson later felt really bad about it, saying she didn't know what she was thinking.

9. The visual effects team misheard one of Cuáron's ideas.

For the scene where the Dementors attack the train, Cuáron had the idea for the rain outside the window to turn into ice, and told the visual effects team about it.

However, due to his thick Mexican accent, they misheard "ice" as "eyes," and went as far as drafting a storyboard in which eyes fell from the sky.

10. Chris Columbus was originally gonna direct this film as well.

The director of the first two films, Chris Columbus, was originally supposed to direct all eight Harry Potter films, but he realized that if he were to do so, he would never see his children grow up, so he ended up only working as a producer instead.

And that's it!