Someone should probably check to make sure HBO isn’t brewing any errant Polyjuice Potion, because the network’s Harry Potter show is looking pretty damn familiar. Over two decades ago, Warwick Davis taught a class of young witches and wizards how to swish and flick their wands as Professor Filius Flitwick; now, per Variety, he’ll do it all over again in the new HBO show. (The guy must have tenure or something.)
Davis won’t reprise his other role as the goblin Griphook this time around; the Gringotts banker will be played by Leigh Gill. Still, Davis’ casting is yet another example of the series’ seeming refusal to depart from the look and feel of the film franchise that helped transfigure J.K. Rowling’s books into a global phenomenon in the early aughts. Original Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone director Chris Columbus has certainly picked up on those similarities. “I’m seeing these photographs… and [Nick Frost is] wearing the exact same costume that we designed for Hagrid. Part of me was like: What’s the point?” he recently shared on the The Rest Is Entertainment podcast. “I thought the costumes and everything was going to be different, but it’s more of the same. It’s all going to be the same.”
Columbus did diplomatically assert that similarities were “very flattering for me,” but, as he has insisted multiple times now, he sees no reason for himself to be involved. Many of the original films’ stars seem to feel the same way. “I do wish them, obviously, all the luck in the world and I’m very excited to have that torch passed. But I don’t think it needs me to physically pass it,” Radcliffe said when asked about a potential cameo back in 2023. As of this writing, Davis is the only original franchise actor returning for the series, which is currently filming at Warner Bros.’ U.K. studios. We’ll see if any others hop on a broom back to Hogwarts as casting info continues to roll out.
