HBO Announces First Harry Potter TV Series Cast Members, Including Professor Quirrell & Argus Filch

Six major roles have officially been cast for HBO's "Harry Potter" reboot.

In a press release, Francesca Gardiner (the series' showrunner and executive producer) and Mark Mylod (executive producer and a director) said, "We are happy to announce the casting of John Lithgow, Janet McTeer, Paapa Essiedu, Nick Frost, Luke Thallon and Paul Whitehouse to play Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Hagrid, Quirrell and Filch. We're delighted to have such extraordinary talent onboard, and we can't wait to see them bring these beloved characters to new life."

There have been murmurings about a few of these casting possibilities before, including Lithgow; we reported on Lithgow specifically circling the role of Albus Dumbledore back in February. Notably, though, this announcement from HBO is the first official confirmation of any casting for the reboot series, which itself was announced in 2023. There are a bunch of potential issues with this reboot, including the fact that the original film series, which was also produced by Warner Bros., only ended in 2011. Let's put that aside for one second, though, and talk about whether or not these casting choices make sense as it pertains to the characters found in the original books and movies (and truthfully, some of them are pretty spot-on).

Let's start with John Lithgow who, remarkably, is not British, seemingly going against the rule that series author Joanne Kathleen (J.K.) Rowling reportedly imposed when the original movies were made that only Brits should be cast. (Aside from the "Fantastic Beasts" franchise, which is set partially in America, Lithgow might be the first American to join the franchise and play a British person.) Lithgow has crossed the pond in his performances before, though; notably, he was great as Winston Churchill in Netflix's series "The Crown," so it's reasonable to assume that he'll be very good as the eccentric yet brilliant Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Janet McTeer, known for imposing roles in recent projects like "The Menu" and "Ozark," will probably be very, very good as the deputy headmistress Minerva McGonagall, the stern but fair Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts.

Paapa Essiedu, a classically trained actor who you may have seen in "I May Destroy You" or the standalone "Black Mirror" episode "Demon 79," is certainly very talented, but he might be a little too classically attractive to play Severus Snape, a bullied loner who ends up as Hogwarts' Potions master. Fans of Nick Frost likely know him from his collaborations with Simon Pegg, including the Cornetto trilogy ("Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz," and "The World's End"), and he's a great choice to play Hogwarts' big-hearted half-giant groundskeeper Rubeus Hagrid, and Welsh comedian Paul Whitehouse will presumably bring some offbeat humor to the role of Argus Filch, the constantly cantankerous caretaker of the massive castle. As for Luke Thallon, who works primarily onstage in London, he's a relative unknown, and he'll be playing Quirinus Quirrell, who teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts during Harry's first year of school (and also, spoiler alert, is possessed by the Dark Lord Voldemort, Harry's lifelong enemy).

Look, I'm a lifelong fan of "Harry Potter." I may or may not have the trio of stars that appear on the corner of every page in the American book editions tattooed on my arm! I'm still extremely apprehensive about this "Harry Potter" reboot, and while there are definitely a bunch of legitimate reasons to worry about this series being a total flop, I'll just touch on a few here. As I said earlier, this reboot is following a movie franchise that only ended about 14 years ago as of this writing. Those films, which feature Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson in career-defining roles as the main trio Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, are still widely watched around the world, and it's going to be a big ask for fans of the franchise to stop viewing those as the definitive adaptations of "Harry Potter." 

The series also reportedly plans to adapt one book per season, which makes sense on some level; the movies cut a bunch of plotlines and characters out of pure necessity, and it'll be nice to see some of those added back in. (I say "some" because there's a really uncomfortable plotline involving house-elves in the fourth book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," which boils down to "slavery is good for the house-elves because they love it," and I don't know that I need a huge focus on that in the fourth season of the show). Then, of course, there's the J.K. Rowling of it all.

Rowling, who, by her own admission, initially used the pen name "J.K." to blur her own gender and sell more books to young boys as well as girls, has been on a crusade since 2020 when it comes to the transgender community. On her X account, Rowling spends a frankly inordinate amount of time taking a firm stance against this marginalized community under the guise of fighting for the rights of "women," and in early April 2025, she also went after the asexual community for ... no apparent reason. I'm not trying to sound flip — Rowling's stance on these issues has been incredibly harmful to many of her queer, nonbinary, and transgender fans, many of whom have disavowed her work. This is all to say that Rowling is heavily involved in the series, which may give some members of its presumed audience some pause before they press play.

Yes, this casting news is, at face value, exciting, but the "Harry Potter" reboot series is riddled with complications, to say the least. It's set to premiere on HBO in 2026.