Woman Of Colour Noma Dumezweni Cast As Hermione Granger In HP Play

For the first time in 19 years, we have new actors cast to play the most famous do-gooder rule / law breaking trio in literature, a.k.a. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger.

Yup, castings for the up-coming Harry Potter theatrical sequel, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which picks up where the Deathly Hallows ended, have just been revealed.

Jamie Parker as Harry Potter:

Paul Thornley as Ron Weasley:

And Noma Dumezweni as Hermione Granger:

As a person-of-colour, the Laurence Olivier Award-winning Dumezweni is obviously the most note-worthy casting of the three (she was born in Swaziland to South African parents fleeing apartheid, before moving to England with the fam when she was seven).


Despite the fact that Emma Watson – who embodied the bushy-haired bookworm through all eight films – is white, but Rowling never actually specified Hermione’s race, as writer Alanna Bennett (who is biracial) pointed out in a piece on Buzzfeed published earlier this year:

“In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Hermione is introduced with a description of her bushy brown hair and her large teeth. “There’s nothing to indicate she didn’t look just like me, yet I always pictures a white face under that bushy head. I always pictured her not-me.

“As I grew up I stopped comparing myself as much to Hollywood actors and tried to train myself out of seeing white as the default for fictional characters.

“And, somewhat miraculously, so did the internet.”

http://sadynax.tumblr.com/post/99664801308/me-and-my-friend-talked-one-night-looong-about


(More excellent reading on Hermione as a non-white character can be found on QuoraHuffington Post, and Hello Giggles.)

That being said, there are TWO OTHER MAJOR differences between the film trio and play trio:

  1. Thornley’s hair is not naturally red, and
  2. Parker is an original member of Alan Bennett’s History Boys cast at the National Theatreso unlike Daniel Radcliffe, he’ll actually give a shit about his performance. 

Tickets for the Cursed Child can be bought HERE.

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