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Who’s who in the wizarding world?
A guide to the characters of the Harry Potter series
The famous trio(From left to right) Actors Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, and Daniel Radcliffe played Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Harry Potter, respectively, in the Harry Potter movie series (2001–11).
The magic and enchantment of the wizarding world of Harry Potter, created by author J.K. Rowling, have endured the test of time. Since the first title, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, released in 1997, more than 600 million copies of the seven books in the series have been sold globally, with Potterheads remaining spellbound by the mysteries, secrets, dangers, and drama in Hogwarts and beyond. The books have been reimagined and recreated across films and stage, with an upcoming TV series slated for release in December 2026.
The Harry Potter series has a wide range of memorable characters, from young witches and wizards to powerful dark forces. This article introduces some of the most important characters in the series and, where they have appeared on screen, offers a look at the actors who have brought them to life.
(The following table may contain spoilers.)
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| character | actor in Harry Potter movies (2001–11) | actor in HBO TV series (upcoming in December 2026)* |
|---|---|---|
| *Casting underway. Keep watching this space for updates! | ||
| Harry Potter: The hero of the series, he is the orphaned “Boy Who Lived.” He has a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead from Voldemort’s attack when he was a baby. | Daniel Radcliffe appeared in movies such as Swiss Army Man (2016) and Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022). | Dominic McLaughlin appeared in the movie Grow (2025) and the TV series Gifted (2025). |
| Ronald (Ron) Weasley: He is Harry Potter’s closest friend and comes from a large wizarding family, with six siblings. Although occasionally childish, he is fiercely loyal and selfless. | Rupert Grint appeared in movies such as Knock at the Cabin (2023) and TV series such as The ABC Murders (2018) and Servant (2019–23). | Alastair Stout |
| Hermione Granger: A brilliant and scholarly witch born to Muggle (non-magic) parents, she is at the top of her class and Harry and Ron’s fast friend. | Emma Watson appeared in movies such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), Beauty and the Beast (2017), and Little Women (2019). | Arabella Stanton |
| Albus Dumbledore: The wise headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he is one of the greatest wizards of all time and a mentor to Harry. | Richard Harris (first two movies) appeared in movies including The Guns of Navarone (1961), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), The Field (1990), and Gladiator (2000). Michael Gambon appeared in movies such as The Insider (1999), Gosford Park (2001), and The King’s Speech (2010). | John Lithgow appeared in movies such as All That Jazz (1979), The World According to Garp (1982), and Terms of Endearment (1983); and TV series including 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001). |
| Severus Snape: The potions master and aspiring defense against the dark arts teacher, he bullies Harry but is an ambiguous figure whose true motives are not revealed until later. | Alan Rickman appeared in movies such as Die Hard (1988), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), Love Actually (2003), and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). | Paapa Essiedu appeared in movies such as The Outrun (2024) and TV series such as I May Destroy You (2020) and The Lazarus Project (2022–23). |
| Rubeus Hagrid: He is a gentle and kind half-wizard, half-giant. The keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts, he has a love of magical creatures and watches out for Harry and his friends. | Robbie Coltrane appeared in the TV series Cracker (1993–96) and movies such as The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Great Expectations (2012). | Nick Frost appeared in movies such as Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), The World’s End (2013), and Cuban Fury (2014). |
| Minerva McGonagall: A tough but fair transfiguration professor and head of Gryffindor house, she cares deeply for Hogwarts and her students. | Maggie Smith appeared in movies such as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), Gosford Park (2001), and The Lady in the Van (2015) and the series Downton Abbey (2010–15). | Janet McTeer appeared in movies such as Tumbleweeds (1999), Albert Nobbs (2011), The Woman in Black (2012), and Me Before You (2016). |
| Lord Voldemort: Originally named Tom Marvolo Riddle, he is a powerful wizard who becomes the Dark Lord and leads a band of Death Eaters. He is out to kill Harry as the young wizard stands in the way of his ambition of ruling the world. His adopted name of Lord Voldemort is an anagram of his real name. | Ralph Fiennes appeared in movies such as Schindler’s List (1993), The Constant Gardener (2005), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). | Billy Barratt (as young Tom Riddle) appeared in the TV movie Responsible Child (2019), the series Invasion (2021–25), and the movie Bring Her Back (2025). |
| Draco Malfoy: An arrogant wizard from a pureblood (wholly magical, no Muggle ancestry) family, he is part of the Slytherin house and is Harry’s sworn rival. He snitches on Harry and his friends to Dolores Umbridge but is burdened with the expectations of a Death Eater family that serves Lord Voldemort. | Tom Felton appeared in movies such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Belle (2013). | Lox Pratt |
| Sirius Black: Harry’s godfather, also called Padfoot, is an animagus (he can transform into an animal). Wrongly incarcerated in Azkaban prison, he escapes and forms a close bond with Harry. | Gary Oldman appeared in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), True Romance (1993), Léon (1994), and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy (2005–12). | |
| Remus Lupin: A close friend of Sirius Black and Harry’s parents, James and Lily Potter, he is a kind and capable teacher who instructs Harry on how to produce a patronus (a type of protective charm)—all while managing the challenges of being a werewolf. | David Thewlis appeared in movies such as Seven Years in Tibet (1997) and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008) and TV series including Fargo (2017) and Kaos (2024). | |
| Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody: With a magical eye and a wooden leg as battle scars, he is a tough wizard who faithfully defends Harry. | Brendan Gleeson appeared in movies such as The General (1998), In Bruges (2008), Calvary (2014), and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). | |
| Arthur Weasley: Head of the Weasley family, he is a good-natured and humble wizard working at the Ministry of Magic. He is respectful of non-magic folks and inquisitive about their world. | Mark Williams appeared in movies such as The Borrowers (1997) and Shakespeare in Love (1998) and TV series including Father Brown (2013–25). | Rafe Spall appeared in movies such as Life of Pi (2012) and The Big Short (2015) and starred in the TV series Trying (2020–26). |
| Molly Weasley: A devoted mother to Ron and his siblings, she has a strong maternal instinct toward Harry, does not stand for nonsense, and can fight fiercely in the face of danger. | Julie Walters appeared in movies such as Educating Rita (1983) and Billy Elliot (2000). | Katherine Parkinson appeared in movies including The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018) and TV series such as The IT Crowd (2006–13) and the third season (2025) of Here We Go (2020– ). |
| Neville Longbottom: A timid child with a tragic backstory, he is often bullied by Draco Malfoy. But he is a loyal friend who finds his courage and puts up a heroic fight in the end. | Matthew Lewis appeared in movies such as Me Before You (2016) and TV series including All Creatures Great & Small (2020–21) and Murder Before Evensong (2025– ). | Rory Wilmot |
| Luna Lovegood: Unconventional, imaginative, and slightly eccentric, she is considered an outlier but becomes an integral part of Harry’s group of friends. | Evanna Lynch appeared in movies such as G.B.F. (2013) and My Name Is Emily (2015). | |
| Ginny Weasley: The youngest of the Weasley siblings, she is a talented witch who eventually becomes Harry’s love interest and a key member of Dumbledore’s Army, a student group led by Harry that trains to resist Voldemort and the Death Eaters. | Bonnie Wright appeared in movies such as Before I Sleep (2013) and Who Killed Nelson Nutmeg? (2015). | Gracie Cochrane (season one); Bonnie Hill (season two onward) appeared in the movie The Six Triple Eight (2024) and TV productions including Film Club (2025) and Girl Troop vs Aliens (2026). |
| Fred and George Weasley: The funny Weasley twins are known for their playful antics, tricks, and pranks. They open a wizarding joke and novelty shop called Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. | James and Oliver Phelps, respectively (real-life twins), appeared in the docudrama 7 Days: The Story of Blind Dave Heeley (2019) among other works. | Tristan and Gabriel Harland, respectively (real-life twins) |
| Cedric Diggory: A decent and talented young student, he is the Hufflepuff house champion in the Triwizard Tournament. | Robert Pattinson appeared in the Twilight Saga movie series (2008–12) and other films including The Lighthouse (2019), Tenet (2020), and The Batman (2022). | |
| Peter Pettigrew: Once a trusted friend of James, Sirius, and Lupin, he ultimately betrayed them for Voldemort and lives for years in hiding as the Weasley family’s pet rat, Scabbers. | Timothy Spall appeared in movies such as Secrets & Lies (1996), Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2005), and Mr. Turner (2014). | |
| Cho Chang: Cedric Diggory’s girlfriend, she later becomes Harry’s first romantic interest and joins the student group named Dumbledore’s Army to stand up to Umbridge. In the movie plotline, Umbridge uses a potion on her to extract information about this group. | Katie Leung appeared in TV series including Strangers (2019), Arcane (voice; 2021–24), The Peripheral (2022), and the fourth season (2026) of Bridgerton (2020– ). | |
| Bellatrix Lestrange: A fanatically devoted Death Eater, she is fiercely loyal to Voldemort and known for her cruelty, reveling in dark magic and causing devastation. | Helena Bonham Carter appeared in movies such as Fight Club (1999), Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). | |
| Dolores Umbridge: A ministry bureaucrat obsessed with control, she imposes harsh discipline at Hogwarts when she joins as a professor and later enforces oppressive policies under Voldemort’s regime. | Imelda Staunton appeared in movies such as Vera Drake (2004), Nanny McPhee (2005), and films in the Downton Abbey series (2019, 2022). | |
| Barty Crouch, Jr.: A zealous Death Eater, he escapes Azkaban prison, impersonates Mad-Eye Moody, and infiltrates Hogwarts in a bid to bring Voldemort back to power. | David Tennant appeared in movies such as Mary Queen of Scots (2018) and The Thursday Murder Club (2025) and the TV series Doctor Who (1963–89; 2005–22; 2023–25), in which he played the title character from 2005 to 10 and reprised the role in 2013 and 2023. | |
| Sybill Trelawney: A mystical, idiosyncratic, and somewhat flaky professor of divination, she made a pivotal prophecy about Harry and Voldemort. | Emma Thompson appeared in movies such as Howards End (1992), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Love Actually (2003), and Saving Mr. Banks (2013). | |
| Moaning Myrtle: A melodramatic ghost who haunts a girls’ bathroom at Hogwarts, she was once a student named Myrtle Warren who was killed by the basilisk, a gigantic snake. | Shirley Henderson appeared in movies such as Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and T2 Trainspotting (2017). | Molly Hewitt-Richards |
| Nearly Headless Nick: The resident ghost of Gryffindor house in Hogwarts, he is formally known as Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. He earned his nickname because his head remained partly attached to his neck after a faulty execution. | John Cleese appeared in the TV series Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969–74) and Fawlty Towers (1975–79) and movies such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988). | Leo Bill appeared in movies such as Gosford Park (2001), 28 Days Later (2002), and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). |
| Dobby: A house-elf originally bound to the Malfoy family, he tries to protect Harry from danger at Hogwarts. After gaining his freedom, he becomes a loyal friend and repeatedly helps Harry and his companions. | Toby Jones (voice) appeared in movies such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and The Hunger Games (2012), and the TV series Detectorists (2014–22). | Lenny Rush appeared in the TV series Am I Being Unreasonable? (2022–25), the 2024 season of Doctor Who, and season six (2026) of Slow Horses (2022– ). |
| Gilderoy Lockhart: A famous but vain wizarding author, he becomes the defense against the dark arts professor during Harry’s second year at Hogwarts. His claims about his celebrated adventures, however, are fraudulent. He steals the stories of other people’s accomplishments and writes about them as his own. | Kenneth Branagh appeared in movies such as Henry V (1989), Hamlet (1996), My Week with Marilyn (2011), Dunkirk (2017), Tenet (2020), Death on the Nile (2022), and Oppenheimer (2023). | Kit Harington appeared in TV series such as Game of Thrones (2011–19) and the third and fourth seasons (2024–26) of Industry (2020– ), and movies including Eternals (2021). |
| Nymphadora Tonks: A young auror (high-level law enforcement officer in the Ministry of Magic), she can change her appearance and is known for her cheerful but clumsy manner. She later marries Lupin and fights alongside him against Voldemort and the Death Eaters. | Natalia Tena appeared in movies such as About a Boy (2002) and You Instead (2011; released in the U.S. as Tonight You’re Mine) and TV series including the first (2011), second (2012), third (2013), and sixth (2016) seasons of Game of Thrones (2011–19) and Origin (2018). | |
| Petunia Dursley: A Muggle, she is the elder sister of Harry’s mother. She resents the magical world and, after the death of Harry’s parents, helps raise Harry in a household where he is frequently mistreated and made to feel unwelcome. | Fiona Shaw appeared in movies such as My Left Foot (1989) and Enola Holmes (2020), and TV series including Killing Eve (2018–22) and the first season (2022) of Andor (2022–25). | Bel Powley appeared in movies such as The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) and The King of Staten Island (2020), and the TV series A Small Light (2023). |
| Vernon Dursley: Petunia’s husband, he strongly disapproves of anything connected with magic. He treats Harry harshly and repeatedly tries to keep him away from the wizarding world. | Richard Griffiths appeared in movies such as Withnail and I (1987), Sleepy Hollow (1999), The History Boys (2006), and Hugo (2011). | Daniel Rigby appeared in the TV movie Eric & Ernie (2011) and TV series including Flowers (2016–18) and Landscapers (2021). |
| Dudley Dursley: The spoiled son of the Dursleys, Dudley bullies his cousin, Harry. However, their relationship softens somewhat as they grow older. | Harry Melling appeared in movies such as The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), The Old Guard (2020), and The Pale Blue Eye (2022) and the TV series The Queen’s Gambit (2020). | Amos Kitson |
| Lucius Malfoy: Draco Malfoy’s wealthy and influential father, he is a Death Eater and supporter of Voldemort. | Jason Isaacs appeared in movies such as The Patriot (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001), and The Death of Stalin (2017) and TV series including the first season (2017–18) of Star Trek: Discovery (2017–24) and the third season (2025) of The White Lotus (2021– ). | Johnny Flynn appeared in movies such as Beast (2017) and Emma. (2020) and TV series including Ripley (2024) and the second season (2026) of MobLand (2025– ). |
| Quirinus Quirrell: He joins Hogwarts as the defense against the dark arts professor during Harry’s first year at the school. He appears timid but is secretly serving Voldemort and attempting to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone for him. | Ian Hart appeared in movies such as Backbeat (1994), Enemy of the State (1998), and Finding Neverland (2004) and the first four seasons (2015–20) of the TV series The Last Kingdom (2015–22). | Luke Thallon |
| Cornelius Fudge: The minister for magic for much of Harry’s school years, he initially treats Harry and Dumbledore amicably but later refuses to believe their warnings that Voldemort has returned. | Robert Hardy appeared in the TV series All Creatures Great & Small (1978–90) and movies such as Sense and Sensibility (1995). | Bertie Carvel appeared in TV series including Doctor Foster: A Woman Scorned (2015– ), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2015), and Dalgliesh (2021– ) and movies such as The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). |
| Horace Slughorn: A former Hogwarts potions professor who returns on Dumbledore’s request. He likes hobnobbing with talented or well-connected students. A memory he possesses becomes crucial to understanding Voldemort’s Horcruxes (items in which a part of a person’s soul can be kept hidden). | Jim Broadbent appeared in movies such as Moulin Rouge! (2001), Iris (2001), Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and subsequent movies in that series, and The Iron Lady (2011). | |
On the stage
On the stageA 2021 performance of the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in Melbourne, Australia.
The play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, whose first show was in London’s West End in 2016, is based on an original story described as the eighth installment in the Harry Potter series and written by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne. The 2016 cast featured Jamie Parker as Harry, Poppy Miller as Ginny, Paul Thornley as Ron, Noma Dumezweni as Hermione, Alex Price as Draco, Sam Clemmett as Harry and Ginny’s son, Albus Severus Potter, and Anthony Boyle as Draco and Astoria Malfoy’s son, Scorpius Malfoy. Subsequent productions have featured other actors, including Jamie Glover as Harry, Rakie Ayola as Hermione, and Thomas Aldridge as Ron. In 2018 the play opened on Broadway at the Lyric Theatre, and in 2025 the production gained extra appeal when Tom Felton made his Broadway debut, reprising his role as Draco and becoming the first from the original movie cast to feature in the theatrical version. His first appearance began with resounding applause and concluded with a standing ovation, and is said to have given a fillip to the show’s Broadway takings.