For millions of fans, the Wizarding World is a place of pure imagination, but for Flick Miles, Hogwarts was simply where she went to school.
Miles, now , is pulling back the velvet curtain on her time as the official body double for Emma Watson. Cast at just years old after a drama club teacher noticed her striking resemblance to the girl playing Hermione Granger, Miles spent her childhood living out every fan’s wildest dream.
In an exclusive chat with PEOPLE, Miles reveals that the “magic” often involved long days in the classroom—literally.
“Every day, I went to school with the other child actors,” Miles recalls. “We would frequently be in our full Harry Potter costumes during school, making for quite the interesting classroom dynamic.”
When they weren’t hitting the books, Miles and her famous costars treated the multimillion-dollar sets like their personal playground. Between takes, the kids would play high-stakes games of hide-and-seek and capture the flag within the eerie stone walls of the Chamber of Secrets.
While Watson was the face of the brightest witch of her age, Miles was the secret weapon for the crew. Whenever a shot required a hand reaching for a book or a view of the back of Hermione’s bushy hair, it was often Miles stepping into the frame.
“If there was anything that didn’t show Hermione’s face, it might be behind, over the shoulder, or Hermione scanning library books,” Miles explains. “They could use me for that.”
However, there is one major moment in the franchise where Miles didn’t just provide a hand—she provided the whole face.
During the filming of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hermione famously suffers a Polyjuice Potion mishap that transforms her into a cat. As it turns out, the feline version of the character was actually Miles.
“Emma slightly reacted to the glue they used to fix the makeup on,” Miles reveals. “They used me for that part… I got an amazing experience working with the creature effects team, and filming that scene was fun.”
Miles even remembers the trial-and-error process of finding the perfect cat look, noting that director Chris Columbus rejected a “too pretty” ginger cat in favor of the grittier gray look seen in the final film.
After wrapping the first three films and appearing as an extra in the Yule Ball scene for Goblet of Fire, Miles traded her wand for a notepad. She left show business to study journalism, though she hasn’t left the wizarding world behind entirely.
In , she launched a Harry Potter-themed podcast to reconnect with the crew and cast she grew up with.
“That’s what I love about Harry Potter is you truly believe it exists,” she says. “It’s a testament to the crew… You could go to the Scottish Highlands and find Hogwarts there.”
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