Meet Your New Harry, Ron & Hermione

The news of a Harry Potter TV reboot has fans divided – Do we need it? Should we tell a new story? – but it’s safe to say we were excited to see HBO had cast a new fresh-faced leading trio. Introducing Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout…

HBO Harry Potter Castings: Meet Harry, Ron & Hermione

News of a Harry Potter TV series has been bubbling since 2021, with news that it will be a reboot of the original seven novels revealed in April 2023. Since then, we’ve known that HBO – the TV arm of Warner Bros, which created the original films and owns the novels’ adaptation rights – intends to produce and air seven seasons of Harry Potter, each based on one of the seven books, over the course of a decade.

Cue a whole host of script writes (and rewrites), team shifts, creative input from across the board, and a cacophony of opinions from fans of the wizarding world. The behind-the-scenes team is markedly British. The showrunner is British television writer Francesca Gardiner, known for her work on His Dark Materials, The Man in the High Castle and Killing Eve. She is joined by executive producer and director Mark Mylod (The Menu, Game of Thrones, Succession), the producer behind the original films David Heyman, and J K Rowling herself – all Brits.

Most recently, high-profile castings in starring roles have kept the conversation going, including John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore and Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape. One of the largest challenges? Casting three youngsters in the lead roles – roles they’ll be tied into for a whole decade. A unique facet of J K Rowling’s globally best-selling series of adolescent novels is that, with each book, our protagonist Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are one year older, arriving at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for another school year. The original series of films starred Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in the leading roles.

In October 2024, HBO started the hunt, hosting an open casting call for British and Irish youngsters aged nine to 11 to cast in the leading roles. According to HBO, 32,000 children auditioned – and that had to be whittled down to just three. Mission accomplished, it seems. ‘After an extraordinary search led by casting directors Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockmann, we are delighted to announce we have found our Harry, Hermione, and Ron,’ say Gardiner and Mylod, on behalf of the team. All screen newcomers, they are Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, and Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley.

‘The talent of these three unique actors is wonderful to behold, and we cannot wait for the world to witness their magic together onscreen,’ Gardiner and Mylod say. Here’s what you need to know about the incoming stars.

Who Is Dominic McLaughlin?

Scottish actor Dominic McLaughlin will portray Harry Potter in HBO’s Harry Potter reboot, expected to premiere in 2026. Before that, he will star in two British TV productions, both slated for a 2025 release: Sky’s TV film Grow alongside Nick Frost and Golda Rousheuvel, in which he is coincidentally thought to portray a wizard named Oliver; and the BBC’s TV adaptation of Marilyn Kaye’s novel Gifted, which McLaughlin beat 3,000 other Scottish children to bag. On the stage, he reportedly starred in a production of Macbeth alongside Indira Varma.

Who Is Arabella Stanton?

London-based Arabella Stanton is taking the reins from Emma Watson, with her role as Hermione Granger her screen debut. However, Stanton is no stranger to acting: in 2023 and 2024, she played the titular Matilda Wormwood in Matilda The Musical on London’s West End, and has since appeared as Control in Starlight Express.

Who Is Alastair Stout?

And the most ‘newcomer’ of the bunch is Alastair Stout, who has so far only appeared in an advert for Albert Bartlett potatoes.

Release Date

Filming on the Harry Potter TV reboot is slated to begin in summer 2025 at the Warner Bros’ studio in Leavesden, just outside of London. We expect the series to air in 2026.