Tom Felton went off-script to make brutal joke and Harry Potter co-star's reaction is genuine

Sometimes the funniest or best little moments in a show or movie weren’t necessarily planned, but instead they were born out of actors going off-script and doing a bit of improvisation to add that touch of flair to a scene.

Just like Tom Felton did when he made a brutal joke, meaning that his Harry Potter co-star’s reaction in the film is genuine.

The star later called it one of his ‘favourite moments’ from the Wizarding World franchise and it happened pretty early on in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

So, it all went down during the scene where Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Ron (Rupert Grint) decide to drink Polyjuice potion to disguise themselves as Crabbe (Jamie Waylett) and Goyle (Josh Herdman) in order to access the Slytherin common room.

But there’s one slight hiccup as the Boy Wizard forgets to take off his staple glasses.

And of course, Malfoy (Felton) is confused by this and asks his mate Goyle why he’s wearing specs.

Harry, panicking, comes up with the lie that he was ‘reading’.

“Reading? I didn’t know you could read?” Malfoy says - an absolute slam of his mate’s intelligence.

In a clip shared by cameo, Felton confirms it’s ‘true’ that the line was improvised and was off-script, but he wasn’t quite the comical genius behind it.

“Although it wasn’t me that came up with the improvisation,” he explained. “It was Chris Columbus, the director at the time.

“But it’s one of my favourite moments.”

Some super fans were a little disappointed by this though, as they wrote on TikTok: “Wait, Tom didn’t improvise that himself? …. My whole life has been a lie.”

While others admitted the improvised line is their ‘favourite line’ in Harry Potter.

Having been in all of the films, Felton is one of the staple stars of the franchise and keeps in touch with cast mates including the former stunt man, David Holmes.

He was the stunt double for Radcliffe in the majority of the movies (as well as covering other roles) before he was paralysed by a freak accident on set.

Holmes previously told LADbible how he had been ‘checking in’ on his good pal Felton while he was filming in Kazakhstan.

The actor has regularly taken part in the former stunt star’s annual Cricket Cup where teams Gryffindor and Slytherin compete for the trophy, made up by various members of the Harry Potter cast and crew.