{"id":152452,"date":"2025-02-26T07:11:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T07:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/26\/john-lithgow-to-play-dumbledore-in-the-harry-potter-reboot-series-it-wasnt-an-easy-decision\/"},"modified":"2025-02-26T07:11:18","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T07:11:18","slug":"john-lithgow-to-play-dumbledore-in-the-harry-potter-reboot-series-it-wasnt-an-easy-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/26\/john-lithgow-to-play-dumbledore-in-the-harry-potter-reboot-series-it-wasnt-an-easy-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lithgow to play Dumbledore in the Harry Potter reboot series: &#8216;It wasn&#8217;t an easy decision&#8230;&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"byline\">\n<p>        <time itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"2025-02-26\" datetime=\"1740553878\" pubdate=\"\">26 February 2025<\/time>\n    <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/john-lithgow\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,john-lithgow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Lithgow<\/a> is to star as Albus Dumbledore in the &#8216;Harry Potter&#8217; reboot series.<\/p>\n<p>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"image-caption landscape\">John Lithgow is to star as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter reboot series<\/p>\n<p>The 79-year-old actor &#8211; who is known for his roles in &#8216;Dexter&#8217; and &#8216;The Crown&#8217; &#8211; had been rumoured to be taking on the role of the Hogwarts headmaster in the upcoming HBO adaptation of J.K. Rowling&#8217;s magical book series but he has now confirmed the news himself, even though he admitted that it was not an &#8220;easy decision&#8221; to make.<\/p>\n<p>He told ScreenRant: &#8220;Well, it came as a total surprise to me. I just got the phone call up at the Sundance Film Festival for yet another film, and it was not an easy decision because it&#8217;s going to define me for the last chapter of my life, I&#8217;m afraid. But I&#8217;m very excited. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some wonderful people are turning their attention back to Harry Potter. That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s been such a hard decision. I&#8217;ll be about 87 years old at the wrap party, but I&#8217;ve said yes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is not yet known who will join the Tony Award-winning actor will be joined by in the cast as the book series &#8211; which was published between 1997 and 2007 &#8211; is brought to the screen for the second time.<\/p>\n<p>\n From 2001 until 2011, Daniel Radcliffe starred in the titular role of the boy wizard, with Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger respectively.<\/p>\n<p>\nRichard Harris played Professor Dumbledore for the first two films and once he had passed away, Sir Michael Gambon took on the part for the rest of the series.<\/p>\n<p>\nIn September last year, an open casting call was launched to find a new trio to take on the parts of the main trio. <\/p>\n<p>\nThe casting call read: &#8220;We are currently only able to consider children who are aged 9-11 in April 2025, and a resident of the UK or Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;Please only apply if you meet the brief.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nIt was previously claimed that Sir Mark Rylance was wanted by producers to take on the role of Dumbledore.<\/p>\n<p>\nAccording to Variety, the &#8216;Wolf Hall&#8217; actor was &#8220;top of the casting wishlist&#8221; for the show and Warner Bros. had &#8220;reached out&#8221; to the star to &#8220;gauge interest and availability&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Pagination --><\/p>\n<p><!-- playbuzz --><br \/>\n<!-- end playbuzz--><\/p>\n<p><!-- \n\n<div data-cn-project=\"femalefirst\">\n    \n<\/div>\n\n --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n<!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<p>    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/celebrity\/john-lithgow-play-dumbledore-harry-potter-reboot-series-easy-decision-1414299.html?f=rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>26 February 2025 John Lithgow is to star as Albus Dumbledore in the &#8216;Harry Potter&#8217; reboot series. John Lithgow is to star as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter reboot series The 79-year-old actor &#8211; who is known for his roles in &#8216;Dexter&#8217; and &#8216;The Crown&#8217; &#8211; had been rumoured to be taking on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1219,4044,7334,10063,9687,4169,4185],"class_list":{"0":"post-152452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-daniel-radcliffe","10":"tag-j-k-rowling","11":"tag-john-lithgow","12":"tag-richard-harris","13":"tag-rupert-grint","14":"tag-sir-michael-gambon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}