Harry Potter gets his first on-screen kiss

First kisses can be tricky. Even for Harry Potter.

Photo: Harry Potter gets his first on-screen kiss

Harry Potter gets his first on-screen kiss

Daniel Radcliffe, in Tokyo for the world premiere of the latest Harry Potter movie, said it took a few takes to overcome the nerves of getting the young wizard through his first on-screen kiss.

And even then, he didn't really feel the magic.

"When we started it, we were both a bit nervous," Radcliffe said at a news conference Friday. "But after the first few takes, it was sort of like any other scene, which is never really what people want to hear. It doesn't really feel any different, because you are still acting."

In "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the latest installment in the megahit series based on J.K. Rowling's books, Harry comes of age and has his first on-screen kiss, with longtime crush Cho Chang, played by Katie Leung.

It was a big moment for Harry - if not for Radcliffe.

Producer David Heyman said director David Yates cleared the set to create more intimacy for the scene and the crew crowded around a monitor to watch.

"The makeup artist, who's known Daniel really well from the age of 10, she shed a tear," Heyman said. "For me, it was quite moving."

"Order of the Phoenix" opens in the United States on July 11 and in Britain the next day.

Radcliffe said Japan was a natural place for the world premiere - probably half of their fan mail comes from Japan, he said, and the hundreds of thousands of letters they receive are "beautifully presented."

"We once got a gift which I didn't quite understand," Radcliffe said. "It was a sort of big ear."

The movie opens as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is undergoing a gradual takeover by the bureaucratic Ministry of Magic and its emissary, Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton).

A sense of impending doom is heightened by a series of nightmares that link Harry ever more closely to the devilish Voldemort.

The next Harry-related frenzy will be the publication of the seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," on July 21.

The first Harry Potter movie was released in 2001. Radcliffe and co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who play Harry's friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, have been at the center of the Potter storm for almost half their lives.

All three stars have signed up for the final two Potter films.

In the next film, it will be Ron Weasley's character, played by Rupert Grint, who will be doing most of the kissing. Auditions for the role of his kissing co-star Lavender Brown are currently being held in London.

The Harry Potter books have been translated into 65 languages and sold more than 325 million copies since the first volume, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," was published in 1997. The book was published in the United States with the title "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."