It is so hard to be good looking - at least, as far as "Harry Potter" star Matthew Lewis is concerned.
Since playing the clumsy and awkward Neville Longbottom in the "Harry Potter" movies, where the actor had to disguise his good looks with a fat suit, Lewis has definitely changed a lot as far as looks are concerned.
Attitude magazine celebrated this transformation in a shirtless cover shoot last month that has gone viral - so much so that Lewis had to shy away from the limelight for a couple of days.
He spoke with The Evening Standard about the controversial photo photo shoot, saying that he does not regret doing it, but at the same time he feels overwhelmed by the attention it has received.
"It was a good thing to do, the only thing is that it went a little bit more high-profile than I anticipated," he said. "The reaction was crazy - I turned my phone off for a couple of days, it was just a bit weird. It's all nice stuff being said, I can't complain about it, it's very flattering. It's just weird to have people talking about that."
"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling was one of the many who paid notice to his cover shot, and jokingly wrote on her Twitter account that seeing it was "not as bad as watching Dan in Equus, but close. Warn me next time, for God's sake."
Of course, Rowling is very proud of Lewis' success and she added: "I will always support you whatever you want to do, Matthew. Now go put some clothes on."
The next day, Lewis said that he actually received a message from Rowling about that Twitter post. "Bless her, she messaged me the next day to say 'you know it was was a joke right' - she's so lovely."
Lewis is pretty amazed how "Harry Potter" fans have remained loyal to the books, movies, and its author over the years, so he says it's probably the reason why his magazine cover received more attention than expected.
"Even now after so any years of doing this job I still forget how massive Harry Potter is and how many millions of followers Jo Rowliing has and that every little thing she says gets picked up," he said. "It's very easy to under-estimate that whole thing, so what I thought was just a bit of a thing between us that a few Harry Potter fans might see and enjoy became a huge thing."
