"I'm looking forward to playing a good guy one day," says Tom Felton, the actor who turned Draco Malfoy into an evil bully we love to hate.

Not since "The Omen's" Damien has a young film baddy spooked audiences with just one look. Like all movie magic, however, Felton is as far from evil as Santa is from murdering his cuddly reindeer.

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• CTV.ca Trailers: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"If I managed to fool people into believing I'm a horrible child then I did something right," says Felton, 21, who spoke with CTV.ca during a whirlwind visit to Toronto.

Busy promoting "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth entry in the Potter film series, the British actor is full of surprises as he enters a suite at Toronto's Four Seasons Hotel.

Gone are the dark duds worn by Harry Potter's rival. Lost is that odious, entitled menace that prickles the spines of Potter fans.

Instead, Felton sweeps into the room, smiles wide and hands outstretched in greeting, wearing a pink blazer, a Muhammad Ali T-shirt and a blue scarf tossed about his neck.

"I'm not a fashionable man and I'm not going to claim to be a boxing fan," Felton jokes, crediting his girlfriend for dressing him with any semblance of style.

Malfoy's iconic bleached hair is all that Felton visibly carries with him from J.K. Rowling's famed world of wizards. It's enough to remind onlookers that here stands a key figure in one of the greatest film franchises in Hollywood history.

"If you had told any of us that this film series would have lasted so long we'd have laughed at you," says Felton.

Growing up in what he calls "a lifetime franchise," the one-time TV commercial actor turned Potter icon says, "It's really bizarre, especially looking back at early pictures where we were all yea high and had extremely high voices."

That is no longer the case in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," where Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and company are fully plunged into their hormone-raging teen years.

"The characters are now 16 and 17. Things that were relevant when they were 12 aren't any more, like romance. But that's part of the series' success. You're watching these people grow up," says Felton.

Naturally love is blind and exasperating in this new instalment.

Harry falls for Ron's sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright). Ron is wooed, won and driven bonkers by Lavender Brown (Jesse Cave). Jealous Hermione (Emma Watson) watches on determined to hide her true feelings for Ron.

It's an amusing mess set within the scariest Potter flick audiences have yet seen.

Love blooms as Malfoy's evil veneer cracks

Set during Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts, Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters are tightening their grip on the Muggle and wizarding worlds.

Malfoy has received orders from Voldemort as the film opens. His mission is dangerous and of great importance. It's also well beyond Draco's years.

Cocksure and confident, Slytherin's house leader accepts the challenge. It's his chance to usurp Harry's title of "Chosen One." Yet all does not go according to plan.

"Subtly Jo's been establishing Draco as this two-dimensional bully character. But there's more to him," says Fenton.

As romance blossoms elsewhere, Malfoy sneaks about Hogwarts experimenting with a mysterious Vanishing Cabinet.

Malfoy's furtive behaviour raises Harry's suspicions. He's convinced that his nemesis is now a full-fledged Death Eater.

It's a feeling Harry can't shake, even as he carries out his own orders from Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). His mission: Befriend Horace Slughorn, Hogwarts' new Potions Master (Jim Broadbent).

Harry shadows the social climbing bon vivant until he gets what Dumbledore wants. He simultaneously stalks Malfoy, trying to uncover what the dour no-goodnik is really up to.

"Draco isn't quite the man he thinks he is this time around. We see that he's weaker than he ever lets on," says Fenton.

Wafting between good and evil, Fenton delivers a strong performance as a conflicted bully with a surprisingly vulnerable side.

"The script was slightly scary to play," says Fenton. "It was so different than anywhere we had gone in previous films."

The prospect of sharing climactic scenes with Gambon and Alan Rickman (Professor Snape) also rattled Fenton's nerves.

"It really is incredible to see Michael Gambon drinking tea and having a cigarette and then two minutes later he's this mythical wizard. That was fun for me," says Fenton.

Rickman, of course, wasn't so amused when Fenton stepped on his iconic black cape in one key scene.

"Alan turned around in his very sinister Snape way and said 'Don't step on my cape," says Fenton. On the second take, however, Fenton's heel landed on the fabric.

"It ripped Alan's neck back in this hilarious fashion, at least in my eyes. It didn't go down very well at the time," he laughs.

Yet those laughs that made it onto the screen are what Fenton loves most about "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

Whether they're good guys or villains, "It's great watching these characters evolve," says Fenton. "They've all got very human traits. That's what makes this story so relatable."