Emmy-award winning Harington, a lifelong fan of the books, already has some familiarity with his new role: The actor voiced Lockhart in Audible’s star-studded Harry Potter: The Full-Cast Audio Editions last year.
The show could reunite him with director and producer Mark Mylod, who worked on Game of Thrones and is directing some Harry Potter episodes. Mylod is an executive producer on the new series along with author JK Rowling.
Lockhart was portrayed in the Warner Bros Harry Potter films by Kenneth Branagh, and is a key character in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second book in Rowling’s best-selling franchise.
The vain wizard who authored several books on his purported encounters with dark creatures serves as Hogwarts’ latest professor for the defence against the dark arts and fancies himself a mentor to Harry in his second year.
Hoult, known for his roles in X-Men, Superman and Mad Max: Fury Road, was announced for the role earlier this month. But HBO reportedly had to let the Superman actor out of his deal due to his commitments to projects that conflicted with a change in the series’ production schedule, according to Deadline, which first reported Harington’s casting. HBO confirmed the reporting to the BBC.
Representatives for Harington and Hoult did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The HBO series is expected to take 10 years to complete, as producers plan multiple seasons covering each of Rowling’s seven books, which the eight blockbuster films were originally based on.
