How 2 Bangladeshi origin girls were cast in 'Harry Potter?'
For Indian 'Harry Potter' fans, a highlight of the fourth film, 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire', was the Yule Ball. It had been the scene that properly introduced the series' only major Indian characters, the twins Parvati and Padma Patil. Played by ShefaliChowdhury and Afshan Azad, Parvati and Padma were Harry Potter and Ron Weasley's dates at the ball.
Shefali and Afshan played the Patil twins in five 'Harry Potter' films, like the two-part finale, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' - Parts 1 and 2. In a 2005 BBC interview, the actors spoke about the nerve-wracking process of their casting.
Shefali said, "Everything came about when the casting agents were going round some schools in my own area looking for a few people to visit the auditions. I had just got out of an test and I thought that I had done really badly in the exam, and I was in a bad mood and my teacher was waving my name at me on a sheet of paper with each one of these other girls.
She said someone came looking for just two twins for the Harry Potter books to maintain the film - are you interested? And I was like yeah!" She added that since she was a fan of the series, she decided to give it a shot. She continued, "I went to the first audition and I thought OK there's a lot of girls here, I have no idea if I've got a chance, but there's nothing to lose, so I just went for it.
Then I got a call about a week later, maybe more, saying that I was through to the next round, so I was OK I've got a chance now. I really was getting excited, plus they just kept calling back after each addition until me and Afshan auditioned together with Mike Newell the director, then we got a call back saying that people both had got it - that was it certainly."
