The new Harry, Ron, and Hermione have been cast for the HBO+ and Bronte Studios adaptations of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels.

From the author’s website, JKRowling.com:

The HBO Original HARRY POTTER television series has cast screen newcomers Dominic McLaughlin in the role of Harry Potter, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, and Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley.

Francesca Gardiner (Showrunner, Executive Producer) and Mark Mylod (Director of multiple episodes, Executive Producer) said:

‘After an extraordinary search led by casting directors Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockmann, we are delighted to announce we have found our Harry, Hermione, and Ron. The talent of these three unique actors is wonderful to behold, and we cannot wait for the world to witness their magic together onscreen. We would like to thank all the tens of thousands of children who auditioned. It’s been a real pleasure to discover the plethora of young talent out there.’

Rowling, an executive producer for the adaptation (not to mention her ownership of Bronte Studios), tweeted about the casting:

Which response generated a Daily Mail article of its own, ‘J K Rowling gives decisive four-word verdict on new Harry Potter child stars fronting TV series.’ MuggleNet, which seems to have forgotten its aversion to all things profiting Rowling, Inc., because of her supposed “bigotry” and “transphobia,” has posted a stream of articles about the teevee adaptation casting decisions as well as the Universal Epic Theme Park’s Wizarding World attractions which opened this week in Orlando.

Team Rowling invited MNet to the opening so it seems they have been brought back into the fold and their all-in condemnations of Rowling’s Gender Critical feminism have been memory-holed. Emma, Rupert, and Daniel should be so lucky…

Three quick thoughts on the casting choices:

(1) Black Hermione? Read all about it at Horse and Whip’s ‘Arabella Stanton’s Parents: What to Know About Her Ethnicity and Race.’ The Daily Mail came at the issue side-ways to dodge the racism charge in their piece, ‘Stunned Harry Potter fans claim new Hermoine star Arabella Stanton is spitting image of huge Hollywood actress – gasping ‘I can’t unsee it now!‘ (That would be Jenny Ortega.)

I’ve written what I want to say on the subject of diversity casting in ‘‘Black Severus’ versus ‘Black Hermione:’ Similarities and Differences in Casting.’ I’d only add what many others have said about the new Golden Trio; one can only hope that their parents and guardians of these children have carefully considered what their accepting these roles will mean for the rest of their lives and that they will do everything possible to protect them from the madness that will be the actors’ day-to-day life for the next decade.

(2) Rowling’s Birthday Resurrection It’s been quite the fortnight in Rowling Land.

First, the Sunday Times published a not quite hagiographic but certainly laudatory article, ‘JK Rowling: ‘Nobody who hasn’t been poor can understand what it means.’ It is a detailed review of the author’s more than generous philanthropy with respect to causes ranging from orphan children, women needing funding to seek judicial action in the Trans Wars, medical research, and a women-only shelter.

Then Hallmarked Man’s cover was released to the delight of all Cormoran Strike readers.

Then the Universal Epic theme park opened which excites that part of fandom that enjoys the 3D experience of the Wizarding World.

And then the Golden Trio casting was announced, the three players that Harry Potter screen fans are most interested in and excited about.

Rowling celebrates her 60th birthday at the end of July. I think the gods are smiling on her, the stars are coming into alignment, or the plans carefully laid out by the trio giants of Rowling’s marketing team are coming together so that this landmark celebration will see as much of a full-on rehabilitation of the author’s public image as is possible. It certainly helps that she has won the Trans Wars, with the scientific community, court decisions, and public opinion now lining up behind her with respect to the fact that sex is fixed and binary and women’s places must be protected from trans-identifying men.

I think Rowling’s more than positive press in the last two weeks on all fronts is evidence of a coordinated campaign, i.e., her marketing team’s hard work, to restore her platinum status among celebrities. Good on them. There will be naysayers in the comment threads beneath articles about Rowling on 31 July because there is no pleasing everyone but the great majority will be notes of admiration from fans of her writing, her philanthropy, or of her feminism.

The timing of this casting news announcement, in other words, probably is best viewed as part of a larger project and as one that is progressing very well indeed.

(3) So What?

I like to end posts and podcasts with an answer to the question, “So What?” I want the reader or listener to walk away from the conversation we’ve been having with the key points I’ve covered and why it matters.

I cannot think of a single reason that anyone outside the families of the young actors involved should care about this casting announcement. Given the history of child actors since the invention of moving screened images, those families should be alarmed. Given the proven hysterics and volatility, which is to say “mental instability,” of Harry Potter fandom leadership and twitterati (cf. their Trans War long knives for any and all not chanting “T-W-A-W!”), they may soon wonder why they didn’t refuse HBO+’s offer.

Which is none of my business, I know.

What is my business as the “Dean of Harry Potter Scholars” (TM) is to discuss the artistry and meaning of the work written by the world’s most famous and influential writer, J. K. Rowling. She is also, as I’ll argue in a future post, the world’s most famous and influential philanthropist and the world’s most famous and influential feminist. The “So What?” of these discussions is that, man being the story-telling animal and Rowling’s being the most popular stories globally in human history, understanding why and how they work — their structure, symbolism, allegorical and anagogical substance — reveal important ideas and information via reflection on imaginative experience about what it means to be human.

Talking about twitter headers, speculating about the covers of not-yet-published books, fan-girl-ing pre-adolescent actors, planning vacations in Orlando to ride exteriorized and packaged experiences erasing your imagination’s picture or to attend fan conferences? I’ve done all that. I’ll take a pass on those efforts in the run-up to Rowling’s birthday.

What I hope to be sharing here before the end of July are my research into and conclusions about Rowling Studies ‘Fourth Generation’ subjects:

• What is the most persistent ‘golden thread’ that runs through everything Rowling writes?
• What ‘Lake’ event in Rowling’s younger life inspired her to write the Harry Potter stories?
• What are the points of intersection or places of overlap in the Venn diagram circles of Rowling’s three lives as writer, philanthropist, and feminist?
• Are Rowling’s signature characteristics as an author — the literary alchemy, ring writing, psychomachia, traditional symbolism, and intertextual notes (among others!) — best understood in relationship to one another or independently?
• Are the parallels between the Potter novels and their equivalent number in the Strike mysteries a playful game between author and serious reader or are they meaningful? And will there be parallels with other Rowling work in Galbraith numbers 8, 9, and 10?
• Just what kind of feminist is Rowling beyond “biology based” and “Gender Critical”? She’s outside the usual categories of “academic” and “movement” feminism as well; does she have a role-model, living likeness, or historical equivalent?
• Quo vadis, Joanna-Robertus? Extrapolating from Rowling’s recent experience of intentional solve et coagula transformation in the Trans Wars, what might the future hold for her?

That’s a lot, certainly, and it’s certainly a lot more interesting and important than HBO+ casting news from Rowling, Inc., marketing Headquarters. At least to me it is, but, sure, de gustibus. I’m still as interested as the next Serious Striker in ‘Who killed Leda?’ and ‘Is Robin sterile?’ but, until the Big Birthday Bash, I’m going to be focusing on the seven points above.

Stay tuned!

 

 

Angie wrote in the comment thread beneath a ‘Black Severus’ post that, if true, the decision to cast Paapa Essiedu as the Hogwarts Potions Master contradicted a commitment made by the production team to be true to the books:

the director/producer stated at a presentation in December that they were Committed to getting top tier British acting talent that FOLLOWED THE BOOKS CANONICAL DESCRIPTIONS OF THE CHARACTERS. Snape is clearly described in the books as a pale, pallid, sallow skinned man with greasy black hair that went to his shoulders, gauntness, uneven yellow teeth, a prominent hooked nose, and black piercing eyes with an intimidating gaze. 83 times throughout the books was he described in some fashion and this man has NONE of those characteristics.

The relevant passage in the ProductionList.com article to which Angie shared a link is:

At a recent Max 2025 slate presentation, showrunner Francesca Gardiner and director/executive producer Mark Mylod shared key updates. Casting is underway, with an impressive 32,000 young actors auditioning for roles, including the iconic Harry Potter. Mylod emphasized the commitment to finding top-tier British acting talent, following the books’ canonical descriptions of the characters. Casting workshops with a shortlist will begin in January, with roles such as Professor Snape, Lily, and James Potter receiving special attention to ensure accuracy in age and character portrayal. [highlighting added]

Angie — and I assume other serious readers as well — hope that this commitment means the Paapa Essiedu rumor “was just ‘reported’ as a sick joke only to start discourse within the community,” i.e., to gin up interest in the new series of shows based on the books.

I would go with “industry standard marketing maneuver” rather than “sick joke,” but I see Angie’s post (and have come to a similar conclusion about the rumors in recent weeks).

I reviewed some of the casting call materials, though, today and I think Angie is wrong to think that Mark Mylod, whatever his preferences and position may be, was speaking for HBO+ or Bronte Studios in making a commitment to follow “the books canonical descriptions.” The casting calls that have yielded 32,000 sets of audition tapes explicitly opened the doors to actors and actresses wanting to play Harry, Ron, or Hermione who did not look like the characters in the novels or the film adaptations. From Deadline‘s ‘Inside HBO’s Harry Potter Sorting Hat:’

The process to find the Boy Who Lived and his two best friends had been running for months prior to Gardiner’s revelation, following a much-publicized open callout published by the show’s casting director Lucy Bevan, which asked for children aged between nine and 11 as of April 2025 who are residents of the UK and Ireland. The call specified a commitment to “inclusive, diverse casting” and asked that, for each role, agents “submit qualified performers, without regard to ethnicity, sex, disability, race, sexual orientation and gender identity.” The initial round asked candidates to submit two videos, one performing a short story or poem and the second asking them to talk about themselves as well as “a family member, friend or pet that you are particularly close to.”

That “commitment,” of course, contradicts the commitment to conform to “the canonical depiction of characters.” And, forgive me, I have to think the DEI commitment made explicitly before the casting call that yielded the 32,000+ responses has to trump the after-the-fact commitment of the executive producer. The child actor playing Harry Potter, then, could be Asian or Italian, a woman or non-binary, ADHD afflicted or without a leg, red or black, autoromatic, and “transgender,” though the author holds that there are no “trans kids.”

The HBO+ CEO made a soft commitment, too, in recent months to a filming schedule that will begin this summer and to a premiere in February 2027. As I wrote yesterday, I don’t think those commitments are ones to take very seriously — and I’ll say here that anyone who thinks Mylod’s “commitment” to faithfully following the written work with respect to casting characters is writ in stone is setting his or herself up for a real disappointment.

In the same Entertainment Weekly article in which Sir David Waters (Mark Rylance) was rumored to be the Albus Dumbledore of the adaptation of Harry Potter for television, the CEO of HBO+, Casey Bloys, said the teevee series his company and Bronte Studios will be making will not premiere until early in 2027:

During Tuesday’s event, Bloys also predicted a potential early 2027 premiere date for the series. “But don’t hold me to any of that, because we’re just getting started with the writing and casting process,” the exec quickly added.

So, a tentative date of two years from now, the casting mavens have more than 32,000 audition tapes for Harry, Ron, and Hermione wanna-bes “ages 9-11,” with filming scheduled to begin this summer? The casting of the other principal roles is still only fascinating but unsubstantiated rumors — is it silly or prudent at the moment to be assuming that the rumored picks are really just some fan’s best guess or wish upon a Hollywood star? — and all of Hogwarts has yet to be staffed and populated with students, not to mention the Dursleys. Let’s not forget that seven to ten year contract commitments for most have to be negotiated.

It will be something of a miracle for filming to begin by this summer unless September and October are now considered summer due to global warming. This makes the 2027 premiere date make much more sense and Bloys’ hesitance to commit to that date with any certainty.

Your thoughts?

I found this new trailer near the end of another article in the UK press celebrating Rowling’s new ten year contact with MAX television for adaptations of the Hogwarts Saga. The first was The Telegraph‘s ‘The uncancelling of JK Rowling: Tide appears to be turning for the Harry Potter author ostracised for her trans views.’ That 15 April piece was followed yesterday by a Daily Mail article along much the same lines: ‘Cancelled? Thanks to her new £16m Harry Potter TV deal, it’s JK Rowling who’s having the last laugh over trans activists.’

Imagine the conversations at MuggleNet and Leaky Cauldron about what to allow on their Harry Potter fan sites. Each has posted declarations, libelous statements in fact, that Rowling proclaims “harmful and disproven beliefs about what it means to be a transgender person,” i.e., maintaining that biological sex is real, and “commitments” that their sites will not print her image, include links to purchase items from which she might profit, or allow discussion of her post Potter work and “life.” See here and here if you have your doubts about those “commitments.”

For Leaky, which hasn’t posted any Harry Potter news since last October, this wasn’t much of a stretch or sacrifice; the website is largely dormant. For MuggleNet, answerable as they are to their Media Labs owners for generating clicks and traffic, this has been a bit more difficult. [Read more…]