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Jamie Parker as Harry Potter, Sam Clemmett as Albus Severus Potter and Poppy Miller as Ginny Potter, née Weasley
Credit: Courtesy of Pottermore
While little is known of the plot of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the theatrical sequel to J.K. Rowling’s iconic and beloved wizardly epic, new photos released today showing the cast in costume for the first time confirm that even after 19 years The Boy Who Lived has failed to develop a strong personal brand, despite the limitless resources afforded him by magic and inestimable personal wealth.
The character portraits, unveiled today on Pottermore, show Potter family actors Jamie Parker, Sam Clemmett and Poppy Miller as they will appear in the stage play, which has been set 19 years after the books (not including the Deathly Hallows epilogue, as seen above, which forecast a grim aesthetic future for the series’ three protagonists).
Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, playwright Jack Thorne and Tony and Olivier award-winning director John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child officially opens at the Palace Theatre in London’s West End in July, with preview performances from June 7. The play, a highly-anticipated follow-up that will see Harry grapple with his past and his youngest son Albus struggle with an unenviable family legacy, is intended to be viewed in two parts on either the same day or on consecutive evenings.
“He simply is Harry now”, said J.K. Rowling of Jamie Parker in costume as Harry Potter, ahead of the first preview of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two
Credit: Courtesy of Pottermore
“He’s wearing a suit because he’s a Ministry man,” actor Jamie Parker observed of his character. Parker, who plays the eponymous senior Potter, added that “He’s not just a bloke in a suit, that’s way too anonymous, and it sounds strange but we talked around a lot of different suits, because there are suits and suits, and a lot of them we put on and we went ‘Mmm it’s just not right’.”
Correct, Parker. There are suits and there are suits, and to be quite frank ‘it’s just not right’ that Harry, now a middle-aged man who once possessed great talent, for whom access to gold is not an issue and who works only a brisk 20-minute walk from Saville Row, should be dressed so slovenly.
If this is what the future had in store for Harry, a man who is clearly resting on his laurels as far as his signature look of a scar and glasses is concerned, then I don’t hold great hopes for Ron.
New images of the remainder of the cast will be released throughout the remainder of the week.
Pray for Hermione.
Poppy Miller will appear as Ginny Potter, the mother that Rowling thinks “a lot of people would like to have for a mother. Kind and cool, exactly as I imagined her,” in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two
Credit: Courtesy of Pottermore
Of casting Sam Clemmett as Albus Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two, Rowling reflected, “We couldn’t have cast better.”
Credit: Courtesy of Pottermore
Tile and cover image: Courtesy of Warner Bros.
