Young Grindelwald actor Jamie Campbell Bower recalls his first audition for Harry Potter, which didn't go as well as expected. Bower played a young Gellert Grindelwald in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 and reprised the role eight years later in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. The seventh installment in the Harry Potter saga, Deathly Hallows - Part 1 grossed $ 330 million worldwide on opening weekend, making it the third highest-grossing Harry Potter film, just behind Deathly Hallows. - Part 2 and The Philosopher's Stone.
Although Bower played young Grindelwald in two Harry Potter films, each of Bower's appearances lasted only a few seconds, and neither played roles. Despite this, however, Bower's brief performance in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 was a key part of the film's story, as Grindelwald once owned one of the title's Hallows.
In the Wizarding World lore, Grindelwald was the as fearsome villain as Voldemort, and his reign of terror in 1900 culminated in an epic duel with Albus Dumbledore. Bower has only had a chance to appear as Grindelwald in flashbacks and imagery, yet he is still considered a part of the Harry Potter family. However, he almost held a much more important position within the cast.
In an interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Bower recalls his first audition for Harry Potter and how he didn't quite go according to his plans. Bower remembers the agents who came to his school looking for children to star in the first-ever Harry Potter movie when he was about 14. Bower says he was cast as a potential contender to play Harry, but that his audition of him with director Chris Columbus didn't go very well. Read the full Bower recollection below:
“I went to meet Chris Columbus in London for the first Harry Potter, and they asked us to prepare a joke. And I had just heard this joke about a fairy ... like, why the fairy is on top of the Christmas tree, and it's a really, like, dirty joke, because she talks about the Christmas tree at the bottom of someone. . And I told this joke during the audition, and there was again, this sort of ... air as simple as the silence after I said it. And I was like, 'Well ... he screwed it up.' [Laughs] "
Bower lost the role of Harry Potter's The Boy Who Lived, but he has since appeared on several notable properties. This includes The Twilight Saga and, more recently, Stranger Things season 4, where he appropriately portrayed the villain Vecna. Although his time as Grindelwald was overall very short, Bower made a name for himself by playing the villains. This makes it a little difficult to imagine what Harry's Harry would be like.
Although Bower can still play a hero, there's no doubt he's very good at being bad; that's why even with a small amount of screen time, Bower was able to perfectly capture Grindelwald's dark and mysterious nature. While being cast as Harry Potter would undoubtedly change the course of Bower's career, it is unlikely that he would ever have appeared in his beloved roles - such as his appearances in Twilight - had he secured the role of the wizard boy.
Stranger Things season 4 took Bower to new levels of stardom, with fans and critics alike praising his sinister interpretation of Henry Creel, aka Number One. With an already huge fan following and his return as Vecna in the fifth season of Stranger Things, Bower's failed audition for Harry Potter will be just a footnote in his burgeoning career.
Source: Happy Sad Confused
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