If a movie version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ever comes to fruition, we should prepare ourselves for someone other than Daniel Radcliffe to play the eponymous wizard. In a recent interview, Radcliffe said, “ … it’s not even a concern because I’m too young to play the character.”
The latest installment of Harry Potter’s story takes place 19 years after the events in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when our heroic “boy” wizard is actually a man entering middle age. Since Radcliffe is only 27 years old at the moment, the actor feels that appearing as Harry Potter in this incarnation wouldn’t make sense for another “10 years,” and even then, he “would still feel strange about going back to it.”
While Radcliffe’s comments make good, logical sense, he has already played a more grownup Harry Potter — albeit in questionable “old person” makeup in the final scene of The Deathly Hallows – a scene that is recreated at the start of The Cursed Child.
Because nothing has been confirmed by Warner Bros. or author J.K. Rowling, a Cursed Child film is still totally theoretical at this point, making the casting of an older Harry Potter almost totally in the realm of speculation. Still, Daniel Radcliffe also commented that the stage version of Harry Jamie Parker could reprise his role for a possible Cursed Child film. While Parker is certainly age-appropriate for the story, it feels like big-studio heads would probably cast someone with a little more name-recognition at this point. Which, if you stop to think about it, means the list of potential great British actors who could take up the mantle of an older Potter is endless. From Daniel Craig, to James McAvoy to David Tennant, nearly every popular male British actor of a certain age is now a possible contender to play the dad-version of Harry Potter. The only question is: who will pick up the wand?
