10 Things You Didn't Know About Harry Potter's Scar

3. Over 5,000 Scars Were Applied Across The Movies

harry potter and the philosopher's stone baby harry scar
Warner Bros.

With eight movies - each over two hours long - countless deleted scenes, multiple takes and dozens and dozens of stunts, the Harry Potter makeup team had to apply a hell of a lot of lightning bolt scars.

Across a ten-year stretch spanning from The Philosopher's Stone (2001) to The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011), it's estimated that around 5,800 individual forehead-scars were stencilled onto Daniel Radcliffe, his doubles and his stunt performers.

Of that crazy number, 3,800 of those were on Radcliffe himself. With the scar template method, applications didn't take too long, but it's still a lot of work: these scars had to be drawn onto different foreheads, but each scar had to be in the exact same place as the last, in order to preserve continuity.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.