Harry Potter open casting call

[afrikat]

Anyone's kids going for it?? My daughter would have loved to but is 2 months too young 😢

https://app.castittalent.com/HPCasting?utm_source=wwd_web&utm_medium=homepage_tile&utm_campaign=hbo&utm_content=hpseries-castingannounce

🙄🙄🙄🙄

The production is supposed to be a joyful thing for children.

Why all this bickering and positioning. Every child cast will be exactly that: a child.

I think it’s pretty low to be making such an issue over what they look like. I bet the children won’t even notice - unless they’ve heard their parents pushing their own agendas.

As pps have observed, this type of high profile role comes with all sorts of pressures - from potentially living away from home for filming, to time out of school and potentially needing to catch up, to stamina etc etc - and that’s before we even start on an ability to weather the sort of public dissection of them that is already beginning here before anyone even knows who they are. And of course there is acting ability and a chemistry between the children chosen.

They aren’t choosing paper dolls for a dress-up activity book.

These are real children who will have to cope with multiple pressures and demonstrate multiple skills- for their own good as much as anything else. How about stepping back, leaving the selection team with full overview of what they require from the children to do their job and forget, for once, what they look like. They are children.

It's completely normal for adaptations of a book to not try to be identical to everything in the book. Always has been. Why would we want the most talented actors to get less opportunities if they are a POC?

Well HP isn't exactly high art so I suspect they will simply go for the kids who look the most commercial internationally, and as a pp pointed out, resilient.

My daughter would make a great Hermione, outspoken and a know-it-all 😂 she's 12 though so too old unfortunately. She loves acting too, she's already asked if she can audition for Moaning Myrtle.

My friends little boy sent a tape in for Harry, he's 9, has jet black hair and green eyes so he'd be absolutely perfect for it

More intel ! So casting recalls started in October for the golden trio and are planned until December at the moment . Children of all ethnicities have been recalled , the only thing they have in common is that most seem to be small in stature ..

Small children as they hopefully won't physically outgrow their parts?

Are they hoping to do a series a year?

Does anyone know when they might cast for the other characters?

Where are you getting this intel ..either way keep it coming it's entertaining 🕵️‍♀️

Aw man we're going to have another small Ron and Harry then. I mean, Harry is meant to be small at the start but Ron was always tall.

Yes so they don’t outgrow the parts. Some info is first hand and some is available online . Lots of casting agents have posts on instagram around mid October of children being recalled for major new tv show . They all look around 9. It mentioned small for age on the casting originally sent to agents but not on the open casting . Children with agents were also given a script , I think it was from ET .

HBO have said they will probably film the first two seasons back to back so the young actors don’t age out.

I wonder if they will actually aim to keep the same actors all the way through. It's being made by HBO, right? They did "young actor" and "older actor" for lots of the House of the Dragon characters recently, to deal with the time jump between seasons. It seems to take 2-3 years to get a series of TV made, edited and released these days. Different actor would save on having to do lots of expensive de-ageing in post production, as Netflix have had to do with stranger things.

Cynically it also removes power from the actors, if they only get to be Harry or whoever for a couple of seasons. No bargaining for ridiculous money or producer credits if you're getting replaced anyway!

I think in a way it's a good thing, takes pressure off young actors/have more child actor friends to share experience of fame of they do so...marginally anyway

Any updates?

Some kids on their 2nd in person recalls apparently.

How did you find that out??

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

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.

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

Where can I find these posts? Iv seen nothing ?

The FB posts? They are in groups for parents of child actors, ie those who are signed up with talent agencies

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.

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

They aren't. You have to submit self tapes filmed at home. I think it's just that it's a specific group so obviously people are talking about it. But there may well be plenty of kids not in agencies being recalled you just don't hear about it

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.

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