45 pages • 1 hour read
Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard
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Chapter 25-AfterwordChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary: “Beyond the Wand or Lonely in La-La Land”
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses alcohol addiction and substance misuse.
Aside from Planet of the Apes, Felton isn’t offered any more parts without an audition. His girlfriend Jade encourages him to audition for roles, films him for audition tapes, and reads lines with him. He plays the part of Viscount Trencavel in a miniseries called Labyrinth and delivers his monologue to a bored-looking teenager who reminds him of Draco Malfoy, resolving to draw his interest and attention. Felton struggles with the horse-riding scenes in the miniseries, embarrassing himself a few times, as he pretended to be a confident rider in order to get the part.
Felton and Jade move to LA, where Felton is taken on by an agency. He goes to countless auditions, and many of these go badly. Despite these setbacks, Felton’s celebrity status increases, and he and Jade skip queues outside of trendy clubs and restaurants. Additionally, Felton is loaned expensive cars, praised by strangers, and becomes the recipient of free designer clothing. He revels in these perks, but on some level, he feels disconnected from the life he is leading, which feels inauthentic. As a way to cope, he starts to frequent a bar called Barney’s Beanery.
Chapter 26 Summary: “The Ballad of Barney’s Beanery or If I Were a Rich Man”
Felton is drawn to the “normality” of Barney’s, an old bar that attracts a colorful mixture of people who are completely removed from the celebrity scene in L.A. He begins to drink more at the bar, and his drinking addiction soon extends beyond the bar as well. The night before a big meeting at his agency, Felton spends all night at the bar. When he arrives at the meeting, he realizes that something is amiss. Jade is there, as well as his lawyer, his manager, two agents, and an unknown bald man, who is an interventionist. The group reads letters they have written to Felton, who feels angry and betrayed. The interventionist takes him directly to a Rehabilitation Clinic. At the clinic, the nurse offers to give him an alternative name on his nametag to protect his anonymity, but Felton dismisses this idea. Felton, who is still blowing over zero, is put into a room to detox with a man who is recovering from the effects of methamphetamine. Because the man’s symptoms are far more serious than his own, Felton feels justified in his view that he should not be at the clinic.
Once out of detox, he interacts with some of the other patients, who are exhibiting many side-effects. Felton has dinner and smokes a cigarette, considering his choices. He starts to walk, eventually leaving the clinic, and he is surprised when no one stops him. He walks for miles to reach the highway and eventually, the beach, where he screams in frustration. Felton decides that he will walk to Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood, which is many miles away. On this journey, Felton comes across the men whom he later refers to as his “three kings.” The first is a gas station employee who lets Felton take a bottle of water from the fridge and gives him $20 from his own wallet. The man tells Felton that he is rich not because he has money but because he has a loving family. Scoffing, Felton tells the man that he is a millionaire and staggers away down the highway. At the next gas station, Felton asks an Uber driver for a lift to West Hollywood. Although it is upward of a $60 fare, the man agrees to take Felton to Barney’s Beanery for only $20, which is all the money that Felton has. He refuses to give Felton his details so that Felton can pay him back later. Nick, the bouncer at Barney’s, takes in Felton’s bedraggled appearance and insists that he come home with him. Felton uses Nick’s phone to call Jade but realizes that he is no longer in love with her. They break up.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Time Well Spent or Versions of Myself”
Felton checks himself into a family-run rehabilitation center that feels like a better fit for him. His days are structured by meal times, meditation sessions, counseling, and various other therapies. Felton loves his time there and loves the volunteering they do to feed unhoused people at a food truck on Venice Beach. Felton is upset when he is asked to leave after breaking a few of the center’s rules, including visiting the women’s dormitory at night.
Even so, Felton continues volunteering at the food truck and moves in with his friend, Greg. Greg swims in the ocean at least twice a day. He walks backward off the beach, collecting rubbish on his way, and talks to the seagulls. Felton joins Greg in all of these practices. Eventually, Felton gets his own beach shack, adopts a dog, and goes back to acting, choosing the roles that interest him. A few years later, he feels a numbness and disconnection from life and knows that he needs to return to therapy.
Afterword Summary
Felton lives in North London with his dog, Willow. He is acting in a play on the West End. He reflects on the importance and power of art and storytelling, and on the fact that the importance of friendship and family is one of the central lessons of the Harry Potter series.
Chapter 25-Afterword Analysis
In these chapters, as the Harry Potter films reach their conclusion Felton must deal with The Challenges of Navigating Fame and Fortune in a whole new setting, for even as his professional career proceeds in erratic fits and starts, he comes to revel in the perks of stardom that abound in the surreal landscape of Los Angeles. Previously, Felton wanted to be normal, but, in his twenties, he becomes seduced by the special attention that celebrity status brings him; this transition is characterized by the nature of his arrival at exclusive restaurant openings, for as he states, “I’d turn up outside some new fancy restaurant in a bright orange Lamborghini” and “waiters would scurry to lead me to an exclusive table” (248). Thus, this era of Felton’s life is marked by his increased eagerness to embrace the role of a person who deserves special treatment, and he drifts away from his previous appreciation for The Importance of Playfulness and Humility and begins to succumb to the “smoke and mirrors of Hollywood” (249). Abandoning the lessons that he learned from the illustrious yet humble actors on the Harry Potter set, such as Michael Gambon and Alan Rickman, Felton loses the “self-deprecating buffoonery” (249) that his father taught him and starts to take himself too seriously, because, as he says, “everyone took me too seriously” (249).
As a result of this unbalancing social experience, Felton’s drinking grows worse as he grows increasingly disconnected from his authentic self. Initially, he is unwilling to face this issue, although on some level he knows that his current lifestyle is “inauthentic” (248) at best. His increasing addiction to alcohol enables his avoidance of the deeper spiritual issues that confront him, and he continues to ignore the fact that he has become disconnected from himself and his path in life; he doesn’t enjoy the people he spends time with, many of the parts he is auditioning for don’t feel right, and he realizes that he is no longer in love with his girlfriend, Jade (248). However, he is unable or unwilling to confront these stark facts and instead continues drinking, which only leads him to become even more “lonely and disassociated” (250). Felton therefore learns that the dangerous addiction to alcohol may provide a temporary escape from life’s problems but eventually leads to far worse complications. While his first stint in a rehab clinic is a rather abortive one at best, Felton’s eventful escape gives him some much-needed perspective on the direction of his life. This leads him to feel absolutely devastated and dissatisfied; as he states, “I was, I realise now, completely sober for the first time in ages, and I had an overwhelming sense of clarity and anger” (265). Reflecting a much more intense example of The Challenges of Navigating Fame and Fortune, Felton’s anger and confusion are characterized by his screaming on the beach by the highway, for he describes his experience by stating, “I started screaming at God, at the sky, at everyone and no one, full of fury for what had happened to me, for the situation in which I found myself” (265). This maelstrom of emotion proves to be an important impetus that forces Felton to take stock of his life and to make changes; Felton feels that the intervention and the rehab check-in was absolutely essential, “because it briefly took me away from the world that was making me unhappy, and allowed me to get some clarity” (274).
The kindness of the gas station attendant, the Uber driver, and the bouncer, all of whom help Felton with no thought of personal gain, reminds him of what is truly important in life: human connection, kindness, and humility. As the gas station attendant tells Felton, “I don’t have much money. I don’t have a big house or a fancy car. But I have my wife, and I have my children, and I have my grandchildren, and that means I am a rich man” (267). This forces Felton to remember The Importance of Friends and Family; at this point in his life, he has drifted from his family and spends time with people whom he finds to be empty and inauthentic. Through his drinking, Felton has been avoiding the fact that he misses “fishing by the lake with Chris” (248), and he also misses Jink, Ash, and his mother. Thus, the gas station attendant’s humble pride in his beloved family cuts through Felton’s bravado, for although the young actor ruefully laughs, “I’m a millionaire,” he privately realizes, “I’m not rich at all. Not like you” (267). This reflection illustrates Felton’s new willingness to return to his values.
Accordingly, Felton’s Afterword illustrates a full-circle return to the values he internalized as a child but accidentally abandoned for a time in Los Angeles. He now works on projects that he is passionate about, such as the West End production. He also reconnects with his family and devotes himself to his rescue dog, Willow. Above all, he strives to live a life in which “love, family and friendship are at the forefront” (286). Ultimately, Felton uses his own story to stress the importance of seeking help when confronted by mental health conditions; he urges his readers to know that they are not alone if they are feeling lonely, numb, or disconnected from themselves and their lives. He stresses the power of therapy, stating, “I urge you to talk about it to someone” (282). He suggests that this message is especially important in Britain, where people are more reserved and reticent about seeking therapeutic help than people in America.
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