HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Series Issues Open Casting Call: Everything We Know So Far

 

This illustration photo created in Los Angeles shows the upcoming Harry Potter series announcement.

An open casting call has been put out in the U.K. and Ireland in search of young actors to play the three main characters—Harry, Ron and Hermione—in HBO's upcoming "Harry Potter" show, which will turn each of the series' seven original books into a separate season of television.

Key Facts

The series opened a casting call this week for actors who will be between the ages of 9 and 11 in April of 2025 and calls on those interested to submit two self-tapes—one with a brief introduction and one performing a short story or poem.

Actors must be residents of the U.K. or Ireland to be considered.

Information has slowly been released about the still-unnamed show since it was formally ordered in April 2023, including summer announcements that an Emmy award-winning director had been chosen to executive produce and direct several episodes and Francesca Gardiner, a "Succession" and "His Dark Materials" producer, was named as show-runner.

Mark Mylod, who directed several episodes of "Game of Thrones," "Succession" and the Golden Globe-nominated film "The Menu,” and Gardiner will both executive produce alongside series author J.K. Rowling, Neil Blair, Ruth Kenley-Letts and David Heyman of Heyday Films.

Mylod will also direct several episodes of the show, which will be released over the course of a decade.

No casting or writing announcements have been made, nor has an official premiere date been announced, but the series is expected to debut on HBO and the Warner Bros. Discovery Max streaming service in 2026.

The show been billed as a "faithful adaptation" of one of history's most successful franchises and Rowling has praised HBO for its commitment to "preserving the integrity" of the books and said the new adaptation "will allow for a degree of depth and detail only afforded by a long form television series."

Surprising Fact

Rupert Grint, who payed Ron in the original series of films, applied for the role via open casting call after seeing a report on Newsround. He has said he submitted a video of him performing an original rap with basic information about him and how badly he wanted to be part of "Harry Potter."

What To Watch For

Exactly how faithful the new show will be to the original book series. Despite being widely loved by fans, the movies have been criticized for leaving out several plot points that were significant in the original series. The films left out Hermionie Granger's creation of the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, through which she aims to free enslaved house elves, and entirely omitted the fun but minor character of Peeves the Poltergeist. The movies also left out or changed a series of small but meaningful details, like Potter donating his Triwizard Tournament winnings to the Wealsey twins to fund their Diagon Alley joke shop, and made Cho Chang the student who portrayed "Dumbledore's Army" in the leadup to war with Voldemort (in the books, it was a sixth year Ravenclaw student named Marietta Edgecombe).

Crucial Quote

“The series will feature a new cast to lead a new generation of fandom, full of the fantastic detail and much-loved characters ‘Harry Potter’ fans have loved for over twenty-five years,” the show’s logline reads. “Each season will bring ‘Harry Potter’ and these incredible adventures to new audiences around the world.”

Key Background

The wizarding adventures of Harry Potter took the world by storm when the first book, released in the United States as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” was published in 1997. Six more books were released over the next 10 years and the series went on to be one of the bestselling in the world, selling more than 500 million copies worldwide in 80 languages. The first "Harry Potter" film shot child actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint to super stardom. Iconic British actors like Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith and Gary Oldman also had roles in the series, which went on to gross $2.39 billion domestically across 8 movies. A play called "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," adapted from an original J.K. Rowling story and set 19 years after the events of the original series, opened in the West End in London in 2016 and on Broadway in 2018. In 2016, a spin-off film series was launched with "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." J.K. Rowling wrote the screenplays with Steve Kloves, and David Yates, who also directed the final four films in the original series, directed. Three “Fantastic Beasts” films have been released starring Eddie Redmayne and they've grossed $489 million domestically.