"Everything we have done before has been building to this confrontation with Voldemort," says Daniel Radcliffe, who, as the titular wizard in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, finally faces off against his archnemesis in the fourth film based on J.K. Rowling's magical saga. "Everyone felt a responsibility to get it absolutely right," he adds, "to make it fantastic and terrifying, so as not to let everyone down." No pressure, then, for director Mike Newell (Mona Lisa Smile), who balances the rebirth of ultimate evil and the perils of young love, as 14-year-old Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) discover the opposite sex. Meanwhile, Harry's inclusion in the hazardous Triwizard Tournament threatens to fracture the trio's friendship; new characters (Brendan Gleeson's Mad-Eye Moody, Miranda Richardson's Rita Skeeter) are introduced; and the darker, more intense subject matter means the series' first PG-13 rating. So just how scary is Voldemort, played by Ralph Fiennes? "We gave him a snake nose," says Newell. "It's not a prosthetic, it's an electronic effect. There is the terrible cold [human] side that Ralph can deliver so well, as in Schindler's List, and on the other hand, a creature of nightmare, something you've never seen before. It's very horrible and very successful."

POTTERY YARN: 1. Robert Pattinson plays Cedric Diggory, a Hogwarts student who competes in the Triwizard Tournament, consisting of three daunting tasks undertaken by representatives of three wizarding schools. "When you look at him, you know he's going to [be endangered]," says Newell. "He's too good-looking, too golden boy not to."








2. Hermione (Emma Watson) dances at the Yule Ball with Bulgarian tournament contestant Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski). "Hermione and Ron haven't quite figured out that they've got feelings for each other," says Watson. "Krum sweeps her off her feet." As for Harry's crush on Cho Chang (Katie Leung), Radcliffe says, "I don't think he knows how to ask her out, how to even speak to her." Rock star alert: The Yule Ball band includes Pulp's Jarvis Cocker and two members of Radiohead.

3. The Goblet of Fire selects the tournament competitors—including Harry, even though he is underage. "The Triwizard Tournament is the center of the device that Voldemort's lieutenants use to bring [Harry] to the right place at the right time and take what they need from him," says Newell. Contestants must navigate a maze, face off against a fire-breathing dragon, and retrieve something from the bottom of Hogwarts' lake. "For the underwater task, I trained for about six months," says Radcliffe. "It was bizarre; it was just like having a film set—cameras, lights—but underwater."

4. Miranda Richardson plays Daily Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter. "She's got this photographer with her all the time," says Radcliffe, "and everybody off-camera was in hysterics because she'd be writing with a massive quill, and every time she'd end with a flourish she hit the photographer in the face, over and over. It's little details like that that make it incredibly funny."

5. Ron (Rupert Grint) with Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson), Hogwarts' latest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. "He's kind of an old gunslinger at the end of his road," Newell says, "and the meanest soldier Dumbledore can lay his hands on to protect Harry and the whole joint." Gleeson says he wanted Moody's magic eye to look "as if it had been handcrafted by the guy himself, kind of self-repaired"; the production created a radio-controlled orb with a magnetic pupil "that would actually fall off," says Radcliffe. "But we needed to laugh, because we were so terrified all the time."

Check out our REVIEW on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.