Game of Thrones actor Isaac Hempstead Wright has issued some advice to the new child stars of the HBO TV adaptation of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise.
More than 30,000 children auditioned for the lead roles, with Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout announced as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley this week.
The three newcomers will step into the roles made famous by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, with Wright warning they will face even more scrutiny than he did as a newcomer.
Wright was selected for HBO’s popular adaptation of George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series in 2009, when he was just 12.
He was cast as the pivotal Winterfell clan member Bran Stark and thrown from a tower by Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in the programme’s first ever episode.
Speaking to The Times, Wright, now 26, said McLaughlin, Stanton and Stout have “a ride” in store and warned social media attention has escalated from the late 2000s when he was a child star.
“Twitter had pretty much just come out in 2009 when we shot the pilot,” he said. “We didn’t quite have the same scrutiny that you would have now. There wasn’t quite the level of hatred back then.”
Wright admits he was so unprepared he didn’t even have an agent when he received his “enormously long contract” for Game of Thrones. “I had my local drama teacher, because similar to these new Potter kids it was an open casting call,” he explained.
“I think my drama teacher sent the contract back to my family and said, ‘I managed to get to page four, see how you do.’ So yeah, initially it’s a bit of an overwhelming moment.”
When asked what advice he would offer the new Harry Potter stars, Wright said: “Just enjoy every minute of it, take every opportunity it affords you… I can go to any country in the world and there will be someone there who’s pleased to see me. You go to some little bar in Madrid or wherever, and somebody will want to strike up a chat with you. It’s made the world a much smaller place.”
Potter star Radcliffe has been open about the low points in his life that were caused by scrutiny following his casting. Towards the end of his Harry Potter contract, which took him from age 11 to 21, the actor turned to alcohol and has now been sober since 2012.
Meanwhile, Watson said in 2009, aged 19: “This all happened to me so young. It’s very hard to go back to that time and be like, ‘Did I want to do this?’ It feels very foggy.”
First announced in April 2023, HBO’s new Harry Potter series is expected to be a “faithful” adaptation of the internationally bestselling books by Rowling.
The author, who maintains ownership over key aspects of Harry Potter intellectual property, including the characters, will serve as an executive producer on the series.
Read full profiles of the new Harry Potter lead cast here.
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