These Actors' Careers Were Pretty Much Destroyed by Harry Potter
While Daniel Radcliffe continues to enjoy his well-established movie star status, not every one of his Harry Potter castmates was that lucky.
The so-called "typecasting", the unfortunate and highly frustrating tradition of assigning an actor or actress to the same type of role over and over again, is all too alive and well in Hollywood. This partly explains the fact that we haven't seen funny twins James Phelps and Oliver Phelps on the big screen for a while now: because of Harry Potter, they basically ended up in a typecasting trap, with their career in film pretty much ruined.
For many Harry Potter fans Fred and George Weasley were perhaps the best part of the series; unmistakably funny, witty, sometimes wicked and devilishly charming, those two brought some unbelievable chemistry on screen, debuting in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and instantaneously winning us over. However, this chemistry on Harry Potter set was ultimately what lead James Phelps and Oliver Phelps into a trap: everyone kind of assumed that the twins were now a package deal, and there were not so many roles for not one person, but two (still aren't).
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Yes, the brothers did not give up and tried to build a career in the movies despite the fact that everyone perceived them as "those inseparable Weasley twins from Harry Potter." James Phelps, the younger one (he was born 13 minutes after his twin brother), managed to snatch some minor independent roles, but that was about it. In spite of all efforts, the Phelps' separate acting careers didn't take off after all.
It doesn't mean, however, that the brothers are stuck in some sort of Limbo without work or, worse, blame Harry Potter franchise for their troubles. The Phelps' are still working in film industry, it's just that they aren't as prolific as their castmates. Recently the brothers could be seen in Last Night in Soho (2021) and have another project currently in post-production: Own Worst Enemy, comedy-drama by Philip Pugh starring Mike Baughan.
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