Another Spall is going to Hogwarts: Rafe is HBO's Arthur Weasley, and his father has been in this story since 2004
Three names went up for HBO's Harry Potter this morning, and one of them arrives with a family history. Rafe Spall is the new Arthur Weasley — which puts him on the opposite side of a story his own father spent five films betraying.
HBO has filled three more roles in its Harry Potter series, and all three are for season two, which is already shooting at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden. Rafe Spall is Arthur Weasley. Molly Hewitt-Richards is Moaning Myrtle. Jasper Ambrose is Colin Creevey.
Spall's casting comes with a family footnote that fans spotted inside ten minutes. His father, Timothy Spall, spent five films in this universe between 2004 and 2010 playing Peter Pettigrew — the man who betrayed Harry's parents and then hid for twelve years disguised as Ron's pet rat. The son now plays Ron's father.
The three names give the season away
Read the three names together and they do something more useful than a casting note: they date the season. Creevey does not exist before Chamber of Secrets. Myrtle haunts the second-floor bathroom that hides the entrance to the Chamber. Arthur Weasley's best material — the Burrow, the flying Ford Anglia, the Ministry raid on his own house — is book two as well.
A cast list is a schedule in disguise. HBO has just confirmed which chapters are on the call sheet this autumn without announcing anything.
Officially, season two was set as Chamber of Secrets when HBO renewed the show in May, with Jon Brown joining Francesca Gardiner as co-showrunner. Kit Harington had already been cast as Gilderoy Lockhart, and Bonnie Hill replaced Gracie Cochrane as Ginny Weasley. Today's three complete the second book's core.
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They are filming book two before anyone has seen book one
Season one adapts Philosopher's Stone across eight episodes and premieres on 25 December on HBO and HBO Max. Not one of those episodes has aired. The second season is in front of cameras anyway, on the same Leavesden lot where the original films were built, which is either supreme confidence or a very expensive way to find out you were wrong.
The recasting board now looks like this.
- Arthur Weasley. Mark Williams in the films, Rafe Spall now.
- Moaning Myrtle. Shirley Henderson then, Molly Hewitt-Richards now — Henderson was 36 when she played the schoolgirl ghost.
- Colin Creevey. Hugh Mitchell appeared once, in the 2002 film, and never came back; Jasper Ambrose takes the camera this time.
- Gilderoy Lockhart. Kenneth Branagh then, Kit Harington now.
Spall arrives off Sky's Under Salt Marsh and the Apple TV comedy Trying. Hewitt-Richards has been in BritBox's Code of Silence and Casualty; Ambrose comes from The Sheep Detectives, and Deadline had reported HBO was hunting for a Creevey before the name landed.
The films took ten years to tell this story. HBO plans seven seasons and has already started the second before the first one has a single viewer.
Which leaves one question the announcement politely avoided: if book two is shooting now, the Weasley family is fully staffed and Lockhart is cast — who is playing Dobby, and will HBO be announcing a person or a render?
Previously we wrote: Jean Smart's eighth Emmy ties the all-time record for a performer
