Game of Thrones star Kit Harington is trading one HBO fantasy epic for another. He will play Gilderoy Lockhart in Season 2 of HBO’s Harry Potter series, replacing Nicholas Hoult, who left the role over scheduling issues, Deadline reported.
Harington is no stranger to the character. He voiced Lockhart in the star-studded full-cast audio editions released late last year, so the recasting effectively hands him a part he has already performed. “I read it, and like so many generations, I was entranced, and then I was a huge fan all through my teenage years,” Harington said of the books in a featurette for the Audible edition.
“I think there’s a little bit of Gilderoy in all of us.”
The switch came together quickly. HBO had been working around two pre-existing Hoult projects, but when the Lockhart scenes shifted within the Season 2 production schedule, the arrangement was no longer feasible and the Superman actor was released from his deal. HBO then reached out to Harington, who was available and eager to take over.
The Most Charming Fraud in the Wizarding World
For anyone who has read the books, Lockhart needs no introduction. He is the vain, boastful and fame-obsessed wizard hired as Hogwarts’ Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, a five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award who built a career on books about dark creatures he never actually fought. Kenneth Branagh played him in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Season 2 was greenlighted in May and is set to begin filming this fall, ahead of the Christmas premiere of Season 1. Dominic McLaughlin stars as Harry Potter, with Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley and Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger. Returning cast members include Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid, John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Janet McTeer as Professor McGonagall. Writer Jon Brown has been elevated to co-showrunner alongside Francesca Gardiner for Season 2.
The role marks Harington’s third series for HBO. He starred as Jon Snow across all eight seasons of Game of Thrones, earning two Emmy nominations, and currently appears as a series regular on the HBO drama Industry.
Why It Matters
A headline-grabbing recast of one of the books’ most memorable characters keeps the buzziest show on television squarely in the conversation months before it even premieres. For Harington, it is a homecoming to the network that made him a star, and a chance to show off a comedic side he rarely got to explore as the brooding King in the North. For fans, watching Jon Snow play the wizarding world’s most charming fraud will be one of the most talked-about casting moves of the year — and a reminder that the Hogwarts machine is only just getting started.
