Warwick Davis: Harry Potter set smelled of rotten food

Warwick Davis has recalled how the Harry Potter Great Hall used to smell of rotting food as banquet scenes would take several days to film.

The 44-year-old actor - who played both Professor Flitwick and goblin bank teller Griphook in the fantasy franchise - has revealed that food used in the sumptuous banquet scenes in the Great Hall at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry was often left out for days, leading to an unpleasant stench.

He told BANG Showbiz: "A lot of great feasts happened in there. You may film them for three or four days and the first day you step in there, they serve you a plate of food with lots of meats, vegetables and roast potatoes and you can eat the food. The next day, they go, 'Don't eat the food' ... you just pretend now, it's been there all night. The fourth day, you could smell the Great Hall before you got in it. The food was the same food and it had quite an amazing smell."

Davis also cast his mind back to the very first film in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and admitted he was in awe of his co-stars when he filmed his first scene in the famous Great Hall.

He said: "Many events have happened in the Great Hall. I remember my first day filming in there; I was at the head table with the other tutors of Hogwarts. I looked to my left and there was Maggie Smith, and Richard Harris, and Alan Rickman, and Robbie Coltrane. And I kept thinking, 'Surely I'm not worthy of sitting up here with these great, gifted actors.' It was an absolute joy."

The Harry Potter films are being screened this summer at Warner Brothers Studios in Leavesden.