Mark Rylance tipped to become Dumbledore in Harry Potter adaptation
Will one of the greatest living British actors want to live with Dumbledore for a decade?
Harry Potter is soon to be an epic TV series, and the Oscar (and BAFTA) award-winning Mark Rylance is on the cards to play Dumbledore.
This is according to the latest report from Variety, which cites the ever-familiar “sources familiar with...”
Rylance has not confirmed he’s going to take the role, but is key among the targets for the job. The actor was most recently seen on screen in the second series of Wolf Hall, in which he played Thomas Cromwell.
He can just as often be seen on stage, though, and is currently performing in Juno and the Paycock in London’s Gieldgud theatre.
If he signs up for the job, Rylance will be the fifth actor to play Dumbledore on screen, following Richard Harris and Michael Gambon in the main line movies — then Jude Law and Toby Regbo in the Fantastic Beasts films.
News of the TV adaptation of Harry Potter first surfaced well over three years ago, with rumblings of its early development at HBO heard in January 2021.
According to Deadline, the plan is to begin production proper in the first half of 2025, with a release of the first season in 2026. The child actors of the main parts are to be between 9 and 11 at the start of shooting.
The production is to be headed by Francesca Gardiner, who wrote on Succession and, perhaps more relevant, the His Dark Materials TV series.
Mark Mylod will direct multiple episodes. He also worked on Succession, and directed several episodes of Game of Thrones.
We’ve heard there will be one season of the show for reach novel, suggesting a wildly ambitious — by today’s standards — goal of making a season each year.
There’s not much room for slippage here, given the actors’ own ageing. It’s a pace the original films largely followed too. From 2001 to 2011 only 2003 and 2008 were Harry-Potter-free.
Does it seem far too early to start rebooting Harry Potter? At this point we might need to direct you to those year numbers. The first Harry Potter film came out more than 20 years ago. We are, it’s a shame to admit, getting old.
Video game Hogwarts Legacy also showed the Potter brand is still hot stuff, regardless of the toxic controversy surrounding series creator J.K. Rowling. The game has sold 30 million copies, despite lacking most of the key characters from the films and books — it is set around 100 years before the events of the main series.