Harry Potter star Fiona Shaw reveals gross way they got the owls to focus during filming

Harry Potter star Fiona Shaw has revealed how they got the owls to focus on her during filming.

Fiona Shaw played Petunia Dursley - Harry's fowl aunt and sister of his mum Lily Potter. In a video posted on the page, Fiona explained that the owls they used during filming were always looking at the cameras.

She said: "The oddest thing early one was trying to perform with the owls. There were some shots where I had to look at an owl and an owl had to look at me."

Unsurprisingly however, it was very hard to get the owls to look in the direction of Fiona as they were distracted by other things.

That was because the cameras would be on a crane or a boom and would 'sweep' over the set which would distract the birds.

During the first film - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - hundreds of owls visit Privet Drive to deliver Harry's Hogwarts letters.

At one point, Mrs Dursley is waving Mr Dursley off to work before finding herself being stared at by some of the owls. But as a distraction, the producers came up with a rather gross way of getting the owls to look at her.

Fiona said: "So in the end we hung dead mice from my apron, so the owls absolutely looked at me.

In the comments, many Harry Potter fans can't quite believe it. One said: "What a fantastic actress. She’s joking about the dead mice isn’t she?" Another added: "Smart with the mice honestly."

Others were just complimentary towards Fiona Shaw and said she's so nice but plays a villain so well. One fan said: "I hated her. That's how you know she was brilliant in the part she played."

Someone else commented: "Oh gosh such a lovely woman who instantly made you dislike her character in the movies! Such a brilliant actress!"