HBO has filled three high-profile roles for Season 2 of its Harry Potter series. Billy Barratt (Invasion), who holds the record as the youngest International Emmy winner, has been cast as young Voldemort, Tom Riddle. Lenny Rush (Am I Being Unreasonable?) will play loyal house-elf Dobby. And Bonnie Hill (Girl Troop versus Aliens) will take over the role of Ron’s sister, Ginny Weasley, in a recasting.
The trio join fellow Season 2 cast addition Kit Harington, who is set as Gilderoy Lockhart.
As they have done with most adult characters in the series so far, the producers are going younger than the movies with the actor who will portray a manifestation of the Dark Lord’s teenage self in Season 2, based on the second J.K. Rowling book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Barratt is in his high teens, close to the age of Tom Riddle in the book, 16; Christian Coulson, who played the role in the second film, was 23 when he was cast.
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The series is going way younger with Dobby, casting 17-year-old Rush. In the movies, Dobby was CGI generated and voiced by Toby Jones who was in his mid-30s when he did the 2002 Chamber of Secrets. HBO would not reveal whether the show will keep Dobby as an animated CGI creation, whether they would add motion capture or would have Rush play the character using prosthetics to achieve his distinct look from the novels.
As Deadline reported in May, the role of Ron Weasley’s (Alastair Stout) little sister is being recast because Gracie Cochrane, who plays Ginny in Season 1, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, is not returning for Season 2, a decision the young actress and her family announced jointly.
Hill steps into the character as Ginny comes into prominence in Chamber of Secrets when she becomes a student at Hogwarts and gets entangled with Tom Riddle (Barratt) after she starts writing into the magical diary that holds the villain.
Greenlighted in May, Season 2 of Harry Potter is scheduled to begin filming this fall, ahead of the Christmas premiere of Season 1 on HBO and streaming exclusively on HBO Max.
Dominic McLaughlin stars as the titular Hogwarts wizard in the Harry Potter series. Stout plays Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley, and Arabella Stanton portrays bookworm Hermione Granger. The core cast also includes John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid.
In Season 1, when Harry Potter receives a mysterious letter of admission to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it opens the door to a hidden world of magic, friendship and adventure. Yet behind Hogwarts’ enchanted walls lie dark secrets. Harry must find the courage to prove himself against the darkest wizard of all.
Season 1 is written and executive produced by showrunner Francesca Gardiner. Mark Mylod serves as executive producer and directed multiple episodes. Rowling, Neil Blair, and Ruth Kenley-Letts of Brontë Film and TV, and David Heyman of Heyday Films also executive produce the series, produced by HBO in association with Brontë Film and TV and Warner Bros. Television.
Jon Brown, a writer on the first season, has been elevated to co-showrunner for Season 2 alongside Gardiner.
Barratt, who won an International Emmy at age 13 for the 2019 BBC Two TV movie Reasonable Child, has been part of the main casts of such series as Apple TV’s Invasion, ITV1’s Gone and Prime Video’s upcoming Life Is Strange. He is repped by CAA, SYA, Ace MGMT, and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.
Rush, who will be in the upcoming sixth season of Apple TV’s Slow Horses, is repped by Curtis Brown. Hill, one of the stars of BBC’s Girl Troop versus Aliens, is repped by Northern Prep Squad.
