Harry Potter Cast: Every Actor Across the Films and HBO Series

The Harry Potter cast centers on three actors who stayed for the whole run: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. They played Harry, Ron and Hermione in all eight main films, from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), directed by Chris Columbus, to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), directed by David Yates. Alan Rickman, as Severus Snape, is also credited among the top fifteen names of every one of the eight, which makes the four of them the fixed core of the saga.

The first film billed Radcliffe, Grint and Watson ahead of Richard Harris, Tom Felton, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane and Maggie Smith, and that adult ensemble of British stage and screen names filled the series with established actors from the start. The principal roles run as follows, using the films where TMDB places each actor among the fifteen billed names. This covers the principal parts rather than every credit, and an actor can appear in a film without being listed for it.

The supporting players are where the casting gets distinctive. Kenneth Branagh played the vain Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Gary Oldman and David Thewlis played Sirius Black and Remus Lupin in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), and Robert Pattinson played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Imelda Staunton arrived as Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), and Jim Broadbent played Horace Slughorn in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). The final two films, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and Part 2, also list Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans in Part 1 and Ciarán Hinds and Kelly Macdonald in Part 2 among the billed names, alongside the established ensemble.

The Fantastic Beasts spin-offs use a different group. Eddie Redmayne plays Newt Scamander in all three, supported throughout by Katherine Waterston as Tina Goldstein, Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski, Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein and Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone. They are Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022), all directed by David Yates. Callum Turner joins as Theseus Scamander in the second and third.

The HBO series has its own cast, covered in full on the Harry Potter TV series page. Dominic McLaughlin, Arabella Stanton and Alastair Stout play Harry, Hermione and Ron, with John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Snape and Nick Frost as Hagrid, as reported by TheWrap on 14 July 2025. Season one is reported for 25 December 2026, and the new Harry Potter movie page tracks what follows.

Four directors made the eight main Harry Potter films: Chris Columbus directed the first two, Alfonso Cuarón the third, Mike Newell the fourth and David Yates the last four. Yates then directed all three Fantastic Beasts films, so he has directed more of this franchise than anyone else.

Columbus was hired to direct the first film, with Steve Kloves as screenwriter and David Heyman as producer, according to Screen Daily, which also reported location filming in England. He made Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Cuarón followed him on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which opened in the US on 4 June 2004. Newell directed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the first film in the series to reach the PG-13 rating in the US.

Yates took over for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), written by Michael Goldenberg, and stayed through Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and both Deathly Hallows films. His Fantastic Beasts run began with a screenplay written by J.K. Rowling, her first, as reported by ET Online in June 2015.

The music changed hands as often as the chair did. John Williams scored the first three films, Patrick Doyle the fourth, Nicholas Hooper the fifth and sixth, and Alexandre Desplat both Deathly Hallows films. James Newton Howard scored the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. The full composer history sits on the Harry Potter soundtrack page.

The HBO series has a new creative team. Mark Mylod is confirmed as director and producer and Francesca Gardiner as writer and producer, with J.K. Rowling, Neil Blair, Ruth Kenley-Letts and David Heyman also producing. HBO announced on 14 January 2026 that Hans Zimmer and Bleeding Fingers will compose the score.

Dumbledore is the role that changed hands most often, with three actors across the films and a fourth in the HBO series. Richard Harris played him in the first two films and died on 25 October 2002, shortly after finishing Chamber of Secrets, according to UPI. Michael Gambon was announced as his replacement in February 2003, and the reported alternatives at the time included Lee, McKellen and O'Toole, according to the Lawrence Journal-World. Jude Law then played a younger Dumbledore in the second and third Fantastic Beasts films, and John Lithgow now holds the part on television.

In my opinion, Dumbledore is the most interesting recast because each actor was handed a different job. Harris played the kindly headmaster of the first two films, Gambon inherited a more physical and sharper-edged version, and Law plays the same man decades earlier, which is a harder trick than simply replacing a face. It could be argued that Gambon had the toughest start, since he followed an actor whose death had just been announced to the public.

Grindelwald is the other headline recast. Johnny Depp played him in the first two Fantastic Beasts films, and Mads Mikkelsen is credited in the role for the third. Deadline reported in November 2020 that Mikkelsen was in talks to take over from Depp. Voldemort is a subtler case: Ian Hart played Professor Quirrell and gave Voldemort his voice in the first film, and Ralph Fiennes played the character on screen from Goblet of Fire onward.

The HBO series mixes returning names with a full reset. Warwick Davis, who appeared as Filius Flitwick and Griphook in the films, is confirmed as Flitwick again, and Kit Harington is confirmed as Gilderoy Lockhart for season two, the role Kenneth Branagh played in 2002. Lenny Rush is listed as Dobby for season two, a part voiced by Toby Jones in the films. One casting report did not hold up: Cillian Murphy was said to have been cast as Voldemort, but he denied it, saying he is categorically not in the series, according to Deadline in March 2026.