What future awaits the new Harry Potter stars?

If you haven’t yet heard the names Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton or Alastair Stout, then rest assured, in a couple of years they will be entirely inescapable. They are the three actors who have been cast in the new and highly anticipated Harry Potter television series, which is going into production for HBO later this year with a likely broadcast date of late 2026 or 2027. Respectively, they’re playing Harry, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, and they have been picked after a long search that has seen 32,000 children put themselves forward (or, more likely in many cases, been put forward by their ambitious parents) to play the iconic trio in the new adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding series. 

There are no roles that are more likely to catapult children into the A-list, as Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have all learned. Those three have pursued post-Potter paths to varying degrees of success. Radcliffe has struggled on screen – he was a stiff presence even as a child – but has had far greater luck on stage, attracting rave reviews for his performance on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Again, for which he won a Tony award. Watson appears to have abandoned acting in favor of academia (she can often be glimpsed around her home city of Oxford, much to the delight of tourists who frequent the many, many souvenir shops dedicated to the films there), and the last time I saw Rupert Grint, he held the door open for me in a North London bar. He seemed perfectly charming in the brief couple of seconds we interacted. 

Nonetheless, all three of them will always be defined by their time in the Potterverse. Although they have made a fortune, both from their initial salaries and the no doubt considerable residuals, it is not a wholly happy legacy. All three of them have denounced Rowling’s views on trans issues, leading her in turn to make various barbed comments about their ingratitude. In truth it seems ridiculous that they are still being called upon for comment: not only has Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that trans women are not women – and the White House seems prepared to go considerably further – but the film series came to an end in 2011. 

Few other actors are so lingeringly defined by the parts that they have played – nobody would seriously expect Maggie Smith or Michael Gambon, for instance, only to be regarded as Professor McGonagall or Albus Dumbledore – but to be cast in the adaptations of the biggest-selling children’s books of the past few decades carries an inevitable weight that McLaughlin, Stanton and Stout (who sound rather like a prosperous East Coast form of attorneys) will have to bear for the rest of their lives. 

Doubtless the new television series will earn a following, not least because the initial outcry against Rowling’s statements has largely died down except in the most exercised corners of social media. HBO will be investing a huge amount of money into the show, not least by bringing in an illustrious adult cast that includes John Lithgow, Janet McTeer and Paapa Essiedu. The original films sternly eschewed American actors, but Lithgow has been an honorary Brit ever since he played Winston Churchill in The Crown, and Succession veterans Mark Mylod and Francesca Gardiner will be serving as showrunners.

In the first image released of the young actors, they look pleased and excited, as well they might, although with just a shade of apprehension. Stanton is mixed-race, which should be unremarkable in today’s climate but may lead some pedants, or trolls, to complain. The fact that none of them have any extant acting credits means that there will be inevitable muttering that the showrunners and casting directors could have found children with a greater track record. Yet this is also unfair. The trio have taken on perhaps the most anticipated, and potentially problematic, roles on television, for a lengthy commitment, and their success, or failure, will define them forever. Only a grinch – or a Dementor – would not wish them luck. They’ll need it.