Think about Harry Potter is to think, inevitably, of Daniel Radcliffe. The British actor has become the most iconic face of an entire generation, and those who grew up with the Wizarding World will always remember him as the brave wizard who faced Voldemort. However, his arrival at the role of Harry Potter was not as easy as many might imagine.
In an interview with the American media Deadline, Susan Figgisthe saga’s original casting director, revealed that Radcliffe was not the studio’s first choice to play the young wizard. According to Figgis, the production company was initially looking for a child with previous experience in the film industry.
“Christopher Columbus wanted to hire Americans and that wasn’t my thing. I believed then, and I still believe now, that if you get the right people, you get an amazing movie,” says Figgins. In fact, the media itself comments that two of the names that resonated most at Warner to give life to the young magician were Oscar Haley Joel Osment, who hit it big at the time with The Sixth Sense, or Jake Lloyd, who gave life to a very young Anakin Skywalker.
Luckily, Warner chose to look for rising stars and, as a result, they left us with a cast that everyone still remembers even more than a decade after their last film. Let’s hope that the production company opts for something similar in this reboot and we see a new generation of actors and actresses break out in style with this ambitious project.
