Tom Felton reprises Draco Malfoy character for Harry Potter play
The production said he was the 'first actor from the films to reprise' their role on stage, and this will be Felton's Broadway debut.
He said: 'Being a part of the Harry Potter films has been one of the greatest honours of my life.
A post shared by Tom Felton (@t22felton)
'Joining this production will be a full-circle moment for me, because when I begin performances in Cursed Child this fall, I'll also be the exact age Draco is in the play.
'It's surreal to be stepping back into his shoes – and of course his iconic platinum blond hair – and I am thrilled to be able to see his story through and to share it with the greatest fan community in the world.
'I look forward to joining this incredible company and being a part of the Broadway community.'
Felton, 37, made his West End debut in the supernatural thriller 2:22 – A Ghost Story in 2022.
He will begin his run in Harry Potter And The Cursed Child on November 11 for a limited 19 weeks, the production said on Thursday.
Producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender said: 'It's not lost on us that this is a cultural moment charged with nostalgia, evolution, and emotion.
'Tom's return to Hogwarts bridges generations of fans and breathes new life into a beloved story. We're beyond thrilled to welcome Tom back 'home' but also into a new family: our Broadway company.
'We can't wait to see him inhabit this role once again with the same depth, gravity, and humanity he has always brought to Draco.'
The play, written by Adolescence co-creator Jack Thorne, began in 2016 in London and has had a Broadway run since 2018.
It was co-devised by Rowling, and is set 19 years after the events of the seventh and final book, with Ministry of Magic employee Harry and his wife Ginny Weasley waving off their youngest son Albus Severus to school.
The two-part play, which stretches over five hours, sees Albus struggle at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with the weight of his family legacy and go to extreme and dangerous lengths to right the wrongs of the past.
Since the ending of the film franchise, Felton has been in 2011's Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and had recurring roles in the TV series Murder In The First, The Flash and Origin.
He has also used his voice in the Harry Potter video games, based on the movie, and featured in the special Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return To Hogwarts alongside Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, who played Harry, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
The seven Harry Potter books are set to be brought to the small screen by HBO, with production beginning at Warner Bros Studios Leavesden in summer 2025.
The young stars have been cast with Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, Arabella Stanton as Hermione, and Alastair Stout as Ron, while the new Draco has not yet been confirmed.
Earlier this year, British actor Paapa Essiedu and US star John Lithgow were confirmed as the cruel Professor Severus Snape and Hogwarts headmaster Professor Albus Dumbledore, respectively.
Also joining is Welsh comedian and actor Paul Whitehouse as the magic-less Hogwarts caretaker Argus Filch, and Hot Fuzz actor Nick Frost as the friendly groundskeeper Rubeus Hagrid.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Belfast Telegraph
8 hours ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Belfast's EastSide Arts Festival is underway – here's what you need to know
Music, comedy, theatre, literature and visual arts events are all happening right now The annual EastSide Arts Festival is underway until August 2, featuring more than 60 events across 10 days of music, workshops, comedy, walks, theatre, literature and visual arts. East Belfast is home to many unique spaces and places which will host a range of festival events, so we're shining a spotlight on some of them and what festival-goers can look forward to. CS Lewis Square opened in 2016, giving life to inner East Belfast with this unique outdoor space. Surrounded by statues of the magical characters of Narnia, the square is a celebration of east Belfast-born writer and theologian CS Lewis.
The Herald Scotland
12 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Before Rebus, McWatters was Scotland's original detective
That is, until a brawl broke out at a gaming table. Amid the chaos, one sharp-eyed man in the shadows with carefully honed detective skills recognised Jacobs for who he truly was. The vital clue? His prosthetic finger made of hardened wax, of course. Soon Legate – or was it Jacobs? – was in custody, another criminal case cracked by a Scottish detective with dogged determination and knack for solving even the trickiest challenge. Kilmarnock-born US crime fighter, George S. McWatters (Image: The Project Gutenberg) It sounds like the kind of twist you'd find in a Rebus novel — Edinburgh's flawed detective whose knack for untangling webs of lies and last-minute revelations has crime fiction fans hooked. So popular is the latest television reboot of Ian Rankin's Edinburgh detective, now played by Outlander star Richard Rankin, that it's just been commissioned for a second series and been picked up by Netflix, opening the door to a new international army of fans. But the tale of The Gambler's Wax Finger didn't play out in the brooding dank closes of Edinburgh's Old Town. And it wasn't fiction. An illustration of a fraudster's capture, taken from Kilmarnock-born detective George McWatters' book (Image: The Project Gutenberg) Rather, this was almost 150 years ago, and the incident on board a Mississippi riverboat was just one of many detailed by Kilmarnock-born real-life detective George S. McWatters in a gripping memoir that kept readers on both sides of the Atlantic, at the time, engrossed. Long before the latest reinvention of Rebus, McWatters' tangled tales of how he brought Victorian criminals to justice was every bit as anticipated by readers as today's fans of Ian Rankin's gruff and rule-breaking DI. Meanwhile, his cases, drawn from his true experiences as a real-life detective in mid-19th century New York, show little has really changed down the years: money, greed and power motivated criminals then, just as they do now. Rebus and McWatters encountered the same drugs, guns, violence and human misery, while the Victorians memoir – clumsily titled Knots Untied: Or, Ways and By-Ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives – contains as many twists and turns as any modern detective thriller. Penned in 1871, by which time McWatters was in his late fifties, its dramatic retelling of cases read like fanciful crime fiction: there are fraudsters masquerading as spiritualists, big money forgery rings stretching across state lines, and deadly poisoners hiding in plain sight. Jail awaited many criminals captured by Kilmarnock-born detective George McWatters (Image: The Project Gutenberg) Yet despite being a bestseller of its times and McWatters described among New York journals as "the Literary Policeman', few today will have heard of the Scottish-born crime buster. Born in Kilmarnock in around 1814, his family moved to Northern Ireland where he became a mechanic. It was a short-lived career. McWatters, said to be 'full of the spirit of adventure', soon left for London, where he met and married his wife. His memoir tells how the bustling streets and the diverse population – rich and well-heeled on one hand, desperately hard-up on the other – offered an education in human behaviour that laid the foundations for his future career as a New York detective. (Image: BBC) Richard Rankin stars as Rebus.'London is a world-school in itself,' he wrote. 'What a man cannot learn there of arts, sciences, and literature and of all the various phases of humanity, from the worse or lower than the barbarian, up to the highest type … he would be unable to learn in any other spot of Earth.' Before long though, he'd be tempted by the 'Land of Promise' and head for a new life on the other side of the Atlantic. In Philadelphia, he studied law only for his boss to give him the task of collecting debts – too much for his 'soft heart'. Having found himself required to deceive his way into a poor shoemaker's home to seize his only furniture – his bed – as payment for outstanding debts, he decided his future lay elsewhere. It set him on course to become one of America's early detectives, cracking crime in an era just as policing was finding its feet, led by another Scot, Glasgow-born Allan Pinkerton and his detective agency. Read more by Sandra Dick: They were also days when detectives worked by instinct, grit, and bravado, often stepping into roles that blurred the lines between enforcer and actor, all of it documented in fine detail in a memoir which had readers gripped. The cases McWatters encountered dealt with timeless topics that fascinated and intrigued readers then and still do now. One involved snaring a deceptive so-called spiritualist who claimed superpowers to summon the dead. The schemer targeted bereaved families, charging for supposed messages from deceased loved ones. Spiritualists and mediums who preyed on vulnerable victims appear in McWatters' book of crimes (Image: The Project Gutenberg) When the spiritualist encountered a timid young woman, fearful that her lack of personal wealth and the age gap between her and her rich husband-to-be might lead to to the marriage being short-lived, she offered to perform an elaborate charm to secure his affection forever. If the worried young woman could gather precious items – an expensive watch, gold cutlery and other expensive personal items – place them in a box and deliver them to her, then she could bewitch the marriage and ensure it would be forever happy. The charmed box and valuables would be returned to the anxious bride-to-be on condition that it be opened only when the mystic Mrs Seymour – the spiritualist – was many miles away. Naturally, once opened, it was found to contain not the precious items but stones and bits of junk. McWatters had doubts he would ever be able to track down the cunning Mrs Seymour. And yet, working undercover and using patient surveillance, he traced her from Brooklyn to Boston, where she was found continuing her cruel scams among upper‑class clients. Posing as a grieving husband, McWatters infiltrated her parlour and allowed her to proceed with her attempt at yet another scam. Read more by Sandra Dick Having watched her make contact with the spirit of his 'dead' wife – knowing she was perfectly healthy at home, looking after their family – McWatters revealed his identity. With the stolen goods recovered, he mused at how susceptible the well-to-do often were to sometimes ludicrous cons and scams aimed at depriving them of their wealth. '(I) came to a knowledge of the great extent to which mediums are consulted by people of the first classes; and was astonished to find how readily they fall through the superstitious element in their composition, victims to the sorcerer's arts,' he wrote. Rebus creator, Ian Rankin But McWatters didn't only unmask con artists and fraudsters. His book notes his various acts of selfless heroism: protecting the vulnerable public from harm was just another part of the police officer's role. One March day in 1861, he 'immersed" himself in the Hudson River to rescue a six-year-old boy who had fallen off the dock. Five weeks later, he was back, aiding in the rescue of another boy from a watery grave, and another time he plucked a grown man at risk of drowning, to safety. An illustration from George McWatters' memoirs showing the rescue of a drowning woman (Image: The Project Gutenberg) And when not cracking crime or carrying out daring rescues, readers learned of his acts of immense generosity: he helped provide aid for suffering and starving people of Kansas, supported injured soldiers and was outspoken against slavery. But it was his detective skills that gripped readers on both sides of the Atlantic: there was the case of a gang of forgers who passed counterfeit bank drafts, a triple murderer caught only after McWatters risked his own life to disarm him, bogus lottery scams and stolen diamonds. His knack for observation meant each account is packed with tension, high stakes and larger than life characters. While, unusual for the time, his exploits were brought to life in his book by illustrations showing him in full crime-fighting mode - including one showing him fighting off would-be robbers by brandishing his silver spectacle case like a knife. Read more: Although Knots Untied sold well in its day, McWatters' name was overshadowed by the likes of Pinkerton, whose famous detective agency spanned the country and snared some of the most famous criminal gangsters of the day, such as Jesse James. McWatters eventually faded into obscurity, and his crime tales were overtaken by the rise of fictional detectives such as Sherlock Holmes. He died in 1886 of pneumonia, aged 74. An obituary in the New York Times sang his praises as Chief of the Lost Children's Bureau, and one of a handful of policemen who defended the newspaper's offices during draft riots, sustaining wounds in the process. He was, it noted, a key figure who supported aid for destitute ex-Union soldiers, their widows and orphans. An illustration from George McWatters' book shows him fighting off would-be robbers using a spectacle case (Image: The Project Gutenberg) The Rebus of his day, his book, which can be read for free on The Gutenberg Project website, shares a common denominator with the crime books and characters of today – readers love a crime mystery. 'Detective stories speak to readers' hearts and minds,' says Jess Faraday, author of the award-winning Ira Adler historical mysteries and a spokesperson for the Crime Writers Association. 'We love to challenge ourselves to find the clues and see if we can beat the sleuth to the solution. Richard Rankin stars in the latest reboot of Edinburgh detective, Rebus (Image: free) 'And seeing justice served helps us to bring order to a sometimes chaotic world.' From McWatters' crime tales of 1871 to new versions of Rebus today some might wonder if there are any crime stories left to tell? 'It's true that the types of crime are finite, and most mysteries focus on only one — murder,' she adds. 'At the same time, within these limitations, the combinations of means, motive, opportunity, and character are limitless.'
Daily Mirror
12 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
ITV The Chase star Anne Hegerty 'happy in own company' after struggling to pay bills
Professional quizzer Anne Hegerty is a firm favourite of ITV The Chase fans, where she is known for playing her straight-laced role as the 'Governess' It's been a long journey for professional quizzer Anne Hergerty, 66, - and she has come far from the days when, during a difficult period in her life, a council worker had to help her open her post. A firm favourite amongst The Chase fans for her straight-laced persona of 'The Governess' on ITV, Anne has become a staple part of the British quizzing scene. But her love for general knowledge and competitive streak goes well beyond the last few years, which have taken her career to new heights of success - even back in the mid-1980s, she made a television appearance, showing off her intellect. A stint on I'm a Me Out of Here, made her something of a household name, and earned her dedicated fans beyond those hooked to quiz shows. The Chase's Anne Hegerty vents true opinion on 'dominatrix' outfit she's 'always hated' ITV The Chase rejected nicknames for Chasers - including one that was too 'racy' Back in the eighties, Anne took a turn in the Mastermind chair, with the special subject of The Life and Works of Lorenz Hartand she looked totally unrecognisable with a curly short hairdo and a patterned dress - that was pretty emblematic of the loud styles that were all the rage then. Her appearance took place in 1987, when she was 30 years old, and working as a freelance journalist - but it isn't the only unlikely throwback of the TV personality that has shocked her fans. An old photo of Anne, when she was even younger, with long curly locks and a cheeky smile, the snap from 1983 was pretty much unrecognisable to her fans, who are so used to her formidable governess persona. These days, Anne is almost always seen in a smart suit that is reminiscent of a schoolmarm, something she has called "stupendously unflattering" but does admittedly fit her quizzing persona perfectly. The governess character is "a bit creepy" Anne has said, revealing she based the persona in part on Professor Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series. "But a friend of mine said 'you won't be able to sustain that', so I went down the more of the standard scary rout and, in recent years, at least one American viewer has compared me to Professor McGonagall from the Harry Potter films," she previously told Stuff. "So McGonagall, not Umbridge: I'll take that." Before becoming a star on The Chase, Anne was going through a difficult time in her personal life. She had been working as a freelance proofreader, but found things getting on top of her. Anne, who is autistic, found it tricky to stay on top of her accounts due to her condition. She was living in council housing when a worker from the Housing Association came to her home because she had fallen behind on paying her rent. "I just simply couldn't keep it going and the result was I wasn't paying my bills, but I was trying not to go on benefits on the grounds that I just thought that was sort of giving up. I wasn't giving up," Anne has said. The TV star explained that during the visit, the women from the Housing Association stepped in to help Anne get back on top of things. "She was stepping over piles of unopened mail and realised we had a problem. She said 'we will fix this, I will get someone to help you,'" Anne explained. Anne was also put in touch with a social worker who helped her sort out her finances and made sure she was receiving the benefits she was entitled to, the Disability Living Allowance. It wasn't long after this that Anne got her big break on The Chase, and whilst she has said she is incredibly grateful for her job, she has also admitted some aspects of fame can be tricky to deal with. "It is difficult to go down the street without being recognised. It's weird and interesting," she said of her celebrity status. "There are times when you're not absolutely crazy about it.. but I hope I never take it for granted." Anne has also appeared on Fifteen to One, Today's the Day, Are You an Egghead? and Brain of Britain - and in 2016 came in at 55th in the World Quizzing Championships, the second highest woman placing in the competition. Anne is undoubtedly a massive brainiac and general knowledge superstar, but she has admitted her autism has got in the way of forging romantic connections. In a candid moment on The Chaser's Roadtrip she confessed to her co-stars Mark Labbett and Shaun Wallace that her longest relationship had been only four months. "He was a lovely bloke, but I am just not good with the sort of attention that people need," she admitted. Anne has never shied away from the topic of her personal life, telling the Guardian that "I think the problem is I find it really difficult to fall in love with real people. I've thought: 'Am I in love with this guy?' And then we kind of get together and I think 'damn it, no, oh dear'." She explained further to OK! magazine that she struggles at times to stay in the moment, "I get overwhelmed in the presence of actual people and everything shuts down. I've found that with sex, too. It's like I can't be fully in it. That much intimacy, I almost zone out." However, there is a long list of single men hoping for an opportunity to take out Anne - who is based in Watford - if she ever changes her mind about preferring her "own company". "Let's say I would not be short of offers if I went looking. But I am happy with my own company," she told The Sun. "I've had relationships go wrong precisely because I could not devote the mental energy to it, and I just thought 'No, no, no, this is not a good idea'. I find men make such great friends - so let's keep them like that."
