Harry Potter star Matthew Lewis has graduated from wizardry to the Wirral stage. He tells Laura Davis about life after Hogwarts

THE drug addiction, rehab stints and slide into relative obscurity that has become almost expected of a child star are unlikely to feature in Matthew Lewis’s future.

The Harry Potter star has managed to make it to 21 without flying off the rails – if not his broomstick – and is cheerfully optimistic about life after Hogwarts.

As the Leeds-born actor prepares to say goodbye to clumsy but courageous wizard Neville Longbottom, he is attempting to plug the theatre-shaped hole in a career that began with his first TV role at the age of five and found him in a movie blockbuster by 11.

While most actors start out in the theatre and progress on to the big screen, Lewis’s experience has been as topsy-turvy as the victim of a Levicorpus charm.

“I was quite unprepared for what it was going to be like,” he says of playing moralistic student Lester Cole in Agatha Christie’s Verdict, which tours to New Brighton’s Floral Pavilion later this month.

“For how big everything has to be because you don’t have a camera doing a close-up and you don’t have microphones.

“There are none of those quiet moments you get the chance to do in film.”

He has never seen a Christie play and, being no spoiled star, he was drawn to the part of Cole because it keeps him well out of the limelight.

“The play didn’t rest on his shoulders, so I could be a part of the company and learn how to do theatre without having to worry too much about being crucial to the storyline,” he explains.

“Theatre was something I was interested in because I didn’t go to drama school and it could help me grow as an actor. It’s quite tough, but at the same time I feel like I’ve learned so much and it’s coming together.”