The L.A. Times‘ “Hero Complex” blog just started running a series of daily interviews with the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince cast and crew.  First up was Steve Kloves, screenwriter of every Potter movie except Order of the Phoenix.

In terms of insights about the new movie, he shares this:

What, if anything, can you say about the climactic moment between Snape and Dumbledore? In the book, it’s a short but intense scene.

It is informed by everything [Potter readers] have come to know is true. So if you watch the film carefully, there are performance moments that are quite extraordinary, Alan Rickman [who plays Snape] especially. There is something we added that you can look forward to, a short scene between Harry and Snape prior to the big event. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays to the audience. It should be a haunting moment for Harry. While I was writing, I just had a notion about a moment between him and Snape, something Harry could look back on and question as to why he didn’t act differently.

He also explains why he didn’t write Phoenix, and man, does it sound like he regrets it:

Why didn’t you decide to adapt “Order of the Phoenix”?

You know, I don’t even know why. The fourth film, “Goblet of Fire,” was really hard to do. I wrote on it for two years. But it’s not that simple and I don’t know that I’ll ever fully understand why I didn’t do it. This will sound glib, but it’s somewhat true: They asked me on the wrong day. They asked me for the last time on the wrong day. Had they asked me the next day, I probably would have said yes. There’s always stuff that goes on around these movies and I felt an urge — and I still feel an urge — to do other things. To go back to making movies nobody wants to see, and I’ll do so. But I think I was feeling that urge particularly keenly at that time. I always said too that if the kids left, I would leave too. And there was some talk about Emma Watson [who plays Hermione] leaving and that would have been hard for me if Emma had left because I like writing for the three kids.

For more, read the full interview.