HBO casts new actors for Tom Riddle, Dobby and Ginny in Harry Potter Season 2
Billy Barratt, Lenny Rush and Bonnie Hill join the HBO Harry Potter series as young Tom Riddle, Dobby and Ginny Weasley for the upcoming second season.
HBO announced three new cast members for the second season of its Harry Potter series. Billy Barratt, a teenager who previously won an International Emmy, will portray a teenage Tom Riddle, the future Voldemort, aligning with the character’s age in the novel "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." Lenny Rush, 17, has been cast as the house-elf Dobby, a role that was previously rendered with CGI and voiced by an adult actor in the films. The series will recast Ginny Weasley with Bonnie Hill after Gracie Cochrane, who played the part in the first season, will not return.
"Hill steps into the character as Ginny comes into prominence in Chamber of Secrets when she becomes a student at Hogwarts and gets entangled with Tom Riddle after she starts writing into the magical diary that holds the villain," the production notes state.
The new actors join returning cast members Kit Harington as Gilderoy Lockhart, Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter, Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid. Season two is slated to begin filming this fall, ahead of the planned Christmas premiere of the first season on HBO and HBO Max.
Season one was written and executive produced by Francesca Gardiner, with Mark Mylod directing multiple episodes. Jon Brown, a writer on the first season, has been promoted to co-showrunner for the second season alongside Gardiner. The series is produced by HBO in association with Brontë Film and TV and Warner Bros. Television.