9 Great Actors Overlooked for Harry Potter Movies

They were pretty good. They could have been better.

(Why not the top 10? Because everybody argues about it. What should be there, what doesn’t deserve it, why #6 should be #1, and on and on. Taste is a funny thing, and arguing about trivia on the internet is pointless. So to make this easier for everyone, here’s nine instead, in no particular order. You decide which one I’ve missed, put them in whatever order you feel is right for you, and debate with your co-workers at the water cooler.)

First, a confession. I’ve never much cared for the Harry Potter movies. They’re not bad, mind you. Just … crowded and rushed. The books are almost all huge, and this puts the movies at an automatic disadvantage. The fans want to see it all, but it won’t all fit; ten pounds of story going into a five-pound sack. The filmmakers took pains to try and get it all in there, but it created problems with both pacing and characterization. We weren’t really watching the Harry Potter story. We were watching vignettes from the Harry Potter story strung together by something kind of like a plot. 

How to fix that? It may ultimately be unfixable (and we should all probably expect to see a BBC 40-episode attempt 20 years from now) but we can chat about it anyway. Part of it lays with the choice of actors. The Potter movies had a quiet rule: all the actors had to be from the UK (or as many as was humanly possible). This provided jobs for all sorts of (mostly) UK (mostly) B-listers looking to break out of BBC series work and get into big-time tentpole blockbuster movies. Some of it worked. Some of it didn’t. Swapping some of these actors out would have been a step in the right direction of fleshing out the world the movies were trying to build on screen. Let’s take a look at 9 possible swaps, and how they might have helped. Obviously, not everyone will agree--your mileage may vary.      

Patrick Stewart (Igor Karkarov)

Karkarov was Rasputin-as-Russian-Dumbledore. He needed crazy-eye weight and heft. We needed to both not trust him AND believe he was dangerous. The movies instead gave us an obvious weasel. That’s a shame. Yes, this is a small role. But that’s exactly the reason why you want somebody in it who draws you to him. An actor who can’t draw you to him has to work too hard in movies as crowded as these were. Stewart is a great example of someone who brings an existing vibe that leads us to want to look at him. And it would have been a fun semi-villain turn for Stewart, who obviously loves weird stuff like this (did you see Mysterious Island?). 

Helen Mirren (Narcissa Malfoy)

Who really noticed Narcissa in the movies? Too much going on. But she’s important, and the audience needs to notice when she’s on screen. Putting Mirren here would have given her immediate history simply because we know Mirren has it. And that’s the key to this whole list. And Mirren was in Caligula, for heaven’s sake, so it’s not like she’s averse to roles in genre movies. 

Judi Dench (Minerva McGonagall)

Gasp! Replace Maggie Smith? Blasphemy! And I admit Smith was stellar. This one’s a shaky proposition, but only because Smith was so good at making McGonagall sing even with limited screen time. But still, Dench could have done it too, and offered us the quiet steel that promised rebellion later in the films. 

Sean Connery (Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody)

They should have docked a tanker full of money at Connery’s private island and begged him to be in these movies. He’s notoriously hard to work with, but the payoff here would have been worth it to everybody. He won an Oscar for Jimmy Malone, and Moody is Malone with a wand. If Connery’s Moody collars Draco Malfoy and threatens him for being a bully, you’d have believed that (What’s the mattah? Can’t you talk with a wand in yah mouth?!). If he threatens anybody, for anything, you’d know to believe that. This would have been gold. 

Hugh Grant (Gilderoy Lockhart)

Hugh Grant is the most obvious choice for “British heartthrob douchebag” ever born. He’s done it so many times, and so well, that we just know he’s that character the moment he comes on screen. Lockhart needed that immediate recognition. The blue eyes, the charming smile, the self-effacing wit, Grant can do all that unconsciously. It would have given us an alarmingly effective Lockhart. 

Jim Dale (Dobby)

Jim Dale is the gold standard of audiobook narrators, and he won awards for his performances of the Harry Potter books, which he practically turned into one-man broadway shows. He could have done Dumbledore like a boss, but that’s a big ask. A better use of his vaudevillian voice talent would have been to bring him aboard for Dobby. His Dobby voice was a superb lisping cockney--an uneducated working-class voice that spoke volumes all on its own--and would have been better in every way over what we got instead. 

Ewan McGregor (James Potter)

Harry’s dad is supposed to be the man. Everybody who knew him declared as one that he was the unforgettable ringleader of the Gryffindor cool kids (for better or for worse). I don’t know who the actor is that just stands there blandly smiling from out of the Mirror of Erised, but it should have been somebody we’d have yearned to meet and hang with just as bad as Harry wants it. Ewan McGregor is one of those people.  

Tom Baker (Elphias Doge)

This is a blink-and-you-miss-it role that nevertheless serves as critical exposition and worldbuilding around Harry. Doge was a guy who was there for all the gnarly stuff that went down then. He was tight with Dumbledore back in the day, an Order of the Phoenix OG who saw some things and clearly knew more than he was willing to tell. Who better to play this dude than Doctor Who? Baker sitting at that wedding reception table would have been an unbeatable act of fan service (and the filmmakers would have made it monumental if they’d had him rock the scarf), and reinforced the crazy awesomeness of Dumbledore’s old-school homies.   

Ben Kingsley (Gellert Grindlewald)

Grindlewald is the shadowy villain who was Voldemort before there was Voldemort, and was apparently something like a global threat. In that sense, he’s the Hitler figure of the Potterverse. He needed a massive presence (especially since he gets only a minute of screen time in Deathly Hallows part 1). Putting an Oscar winner on this beat would have been a stellar way to do that. Kingsley is super good at balled-up rage and vicious Charisma (Sexy Beast, y’all!), and is recognizable enough that we’d intuitively understand that he’s a big deal with big history. And BONUS! He’s got a son who would have been a great choice for this role in the sequel films. Check out Ferdinand Kingsley.