Paapa Essiedu’s casting as Severus Snape in HBO’s new “Harry Potter” TV series led to some backlash from certain fans who were unhappy that a Black actor had been given the role, which was played by the late Alan Rickman in the movies. While Essiedu addressed the racial backlash in his November 2026 interview with Vanity Fair, he also shared a message to those fans who are simply attached to the original films, the first of which came out back in 2001.
“There are people who have got such a tight and deeply felt connection to something that they believe is theirs, and it feels like somebody is trying to take their thing and break their thing,” the London-born actor, who has also plied his trade in shows like “Black Mirror” and “I May Destroy You,” told the magazine, adding, “I know that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to break anybody’s nothing.”
Essiedu went on to point out that, no matter what you may think of the new “Harry Potter” series and its cast, the novels and the movies will always be there. He said: “After this, we’re not going to burn the books. We’re not going to remove the DVDs of the films. It’s not the end of that. That all still exists.” He also noted that not everyone was against the idea of him playing Snape. “I got a lot of love as well,” he said. “That really fuels me as much as the hate.”
Paapa Essiedu grew up reading the Harry Potter books
Paapa Essiedu was seven when the first of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books came out in the United Kingdom. Like many children of his generation, he grew up with the novels, which were published between 1997 and 2007. The books “were coming out regularly at the precise time that I was starting to develop my taste for literature,” Essiedu told Vanity Fair. “The world that was created was so full. Can you imagine, like, 12-year-old boys, 13-year-old boys reading 600-page books, 700-page books about wizards? We’re meant to be out here in the streets playing football, basketball, whatever.”
This wasn’t the first time that Essiedu had opened up about his fondness for the “Harry Potter” books. During an interview with The Times conducted in March 2026, the actor revealed that he was “an avid reader” during his childhood and that he spent many a day in the company of Harry and his friends during school holidays. “My mum couldn’t afford a babysitter in the holidays, so she would take me to the library,” he explained. “I loved Harry Potter. I never saw the films but the books were escapism when other things were less easy for me.”
Book fans can rest assured that Snape is in the hands of a first generation Harry Potter fan. If you’re more into the films than the books, then you’ll be pleased to know that the design of Hogwarts in the HBO series looks very similar to the one from the Warner Bros. features that captured the imagination of so many moviegoers between 2001 and 2011.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
