Harry Potter open casting call

Heard any more? Anyone?

Because your points are silly reasons to try and justify your flawed central argument, that fidelity to the book text is so very important.

But it isn't. The producers aren't making a show for long term passionate fans, they're making a show for everyone. In 2025.

As a result, it doesn't really matter if the books say Hermione has messy hair and in the TV show she doesn't. If it needs to, the show will find a way to communicate the character trait that the book's messy hair signifies. It will adapt. It's an adaptation.

Your concern over the actor's mental health is admirable, but it's also an excuse for not casting black actors in anything "controversial", ever.

Where is everyone getting the intel from?

oh Hollywood reporter I guess 🤦‍♀️

@MasterBeth Lazy response that fails to engage with my points.

Approx 32k applied..I thought it'd be more!

Sounds like choices (a pool) have been made per Hollywood reporter- producers saying workshop happening in January for trio. Bit unclear though as it says "there are some crackers" referring to brilliant self tapes..but then it also says "tapes are being reviewed, up to 1000 a day" so not sure if still ongoing 🤷 I'm guessing not if workshop is in Jan..mind you they know people would attend even if they called on the day at the last minute 🤣

It's an adaptation. Textural accuracy should not and will not be the prime motivation. Making the best TV show will be. They're not making it primarily for long-term passionate Harry Potter fans, but for a general late 2020s international TV audience. That is likely to mean a more diverse main cast than the movies or the books. Good.

@MasterBeth Why are you assuming the canonical POC characters are not beloved, for a start. If you were a long term, passionate HP fan you would know otherwise. Secondly, it's about fidelity to the canon across the board, and you are the one deciding that the key focus is wHiTeNeSs, when it's not at all. There were infinite screw ups with casting the original films when it comes to this exact issue too, despite all three of the trio being played by white actors: none of them looked faithful to the source. Exactly capturing my point. A casting can be white and yet totally wrong.

There are other subtle issues that come into play when they "race bend" a character, and the problem with these is not at all related to whiteness but to the harm that textual accuracy would cause to a child actor. For example, I think that out of the trio, Hermione would be by far the best character to cast with a black actress - her appearance is less of a focus in the books (colour wise) and "black Hermione" is historically loved by the fandom. It may not be accurate (it's not) but there is strong and much loved precedent in the fandom and in the quasi canon of Cursed Child. However, then you run into the issues of (1) her hair, and how to deal with it accurately when it's supposed to be very frizzy, messy, wild etc. That could obviously be hurtful for a black child actor. And also the fact that Hermione is canonically one of the less "attractive" girls in the year, has big teeth for the first years at Hogwarts, etc. They would essentially need to cast a "less pretty" child who would potentially even need small prostheses. Minor "uglification" of a black actor is clearly more fraught and controversial than a white actor, especially when a young actress playing black Hermione would likely receive harassment anyway, from people who saw the casting as "woke" and weren't aware of the full HP background (the concept of "black Hermione" originated with fans, before Cursed Child).

I could go on, believe me. I have a lot more to say on this. But it's so tedious talking to people like you who just lazily assume the worst all the time and never consider there might be more nuance in a situation.

Here's what you said:

When adapting a beloved and widely known existing universe, just use the visual appearance that the (many, many, many) fans already know and love. By which I mean the books, of course, not earlier actors from different versions.

How is that anything other than saying only white actors should play these beloved characters?

It would be lovely to know at this stage in casting how many kids are still in the running is there still alot or only a few I wonder

Oh I didn’t realise they had to be filmed at home even if with an agency. I just saw the advertisement and thought how refreshing they were “ casting” about more widely to find children who weren’t represented by agencies. I have this Charlie Bucket and the golden Wonka Bar ticket image in my mind - some little fellow doing it under his own steam in granny’s bathroom with her phone and getting the role! But that’s the romantic in me! It just caught my imagination.

My child is with an agency but I'm not in any of these groups I might have a look to see

It’s a bit depressing if they are just going for casting agency kids from an open casting call. Videos will be heavily produced etc.

Where can I find these posts? Iv seen nothing ?

@MasterBeth That's an intentionally bad faith misreading of what I actually said.

Word of mouth on the Facebook page 'parents of child models and actors' also on talent agencies instagrams posting pictures about second recalls for 'very exciting top secret tv series filming next year' for children that fit the brief.

People have been told the casting process will take a while though so they may be doing things at different stages and batches.

Yep, our son like me is Asian, he has brown hair and green eyes, like lots of people of his ethnicity.

How did you find that out??

Some kids on their 2nd in person recalls apparently.

Any updates?