We haven’t even seen her in the role yet, and fans are already claiming that she couldn’t possibly be Hermione. How about those fans who don’t want Dumezweni to look like Watson, but who still don’t believe she can play the smartest witch of her age? Luckily for us, Dumezweni is an award winning actress and a veteran of the stage no one is really questioning her abilities, which makes this all the worse. Unsurprising, that has not been the case. If the problem was continuity, surely people would take equal issue with these two white, male actors as they have with Dumezweni. Few are complaining that Jamie Parker doesn’t look like an older Daniel Radcliffe, or that Paul Thornley has an obviously different build to Rupert Grint. Noma Dumezweni not looking like Emma Watson is therefore simply not a justifiable issue to take with the Cursed Child casting.īecause this isn’t really an issue of film continuity.

The films are separate entities, as is their casting, and we shouldn’t expect Cursed Child‘s cast to correlate. Just as Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is a film prequel to the Harry Potter books, so too is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child a sequel to the book series. In reality, Cursed Child owes nothing to the Harry Potter films. They are interpretations and adaptations, attempts to bring our beloved characters to life in a new format. But regardless of whether you liked or loathed them, the Harry Potter films are not canon. When I read the Harry Potter series, I certainly don’t picture Daniel Radcliffe, or Alan Rickman, or Emma Watson. But just as Watson might be your Hermione, that doesn’t mean she is someone else’s - or everyone else’s.Īs someone with very little allegiance to the Harry Potter films, it is much easier for me to divorce the film cast from my perception of the characters. For many, Emma Watson didn’t just play Hermione, she was Hermione. What’s the problem with black Hermione Granger? ‘She isn’t Emma Watson’įor those fans who grew up on the Harry Potter films, perhaps it is difficult to separate the actors from their characters. The casting of the Harry Potter films cemented the belief for many fans that the trio (and, you know, almost everyone in the Wizarding World) was white. Sometimes it’s the default even when there is a contrary description. Unfortunately, but self-evidently, when there is no description, white becomes the default. It’s unsurprising and completely normal that we should all imagine a slightly different Hermione Granger. We were given no specific description of Hermione in the Harry Potter books, and therefore readers were able to interpret her in whatever way they chose. And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with being taken aback by casting that doesn’t fit your own mental image of a character. This change might prove to be a struggle for some Harry Potter fans.

Harry potter and the cursed child