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Paapa Essiedu has spoken out about the backlash he received after he was cast as Professor Severus Snape in the new HBO TV adaptation of the Harry Potter books.
After Essiedu’s casting was announced in 2025 some online commenters claimed that he shouldn’t have been given the role as the fictional potions professor because he was written as white. He even received death threats, forcing HBO to beef up security while filming.
Speaking to Variety at the Time100 Next Gala this week about working on the series — the first installment of which is due out in December — Essiedu said, “The whole team has been so supportive of me.”
“Obviously, my priority is the work,” he continued. “I wouldn’t take this job on [otherwise], but I walk into it with open eyes. I understand the broad spectrum of what the reaction to what we’re doing means, and I take that mantle on with an open and full heart. I’ve also been blown away by a lot of the support and well-wishes and excitement.”
Commenting on the series, he said, “I’m really proud of what I’ve seen so far. There are so many people who worked so hard on this project — and who it means so much to. It’s been a long time coming. It’s been a long time that people have been saying a lot of things, and now’s the time for people to engage with what we made.”
When Essiedu’s casting was announced, he received racist messages telling him: “Quit or I’ll murder you” and “I’m going to come to your house and kill you.”
In response, Chief Content Officer of Skydance DTC, Casey Bloys, confirmed that production has a “serious security team.”
Asked by Variety earlier this year whether he anticipated that kind of reaction, Bloys responded: “With all actors on any kind of big IP shows — and this is obviously one of those where you’ve got, you know, passionate fans, people with a lot of opinions — it can get scary in places.”
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He continued: “So for any show like that, we anticipated it and tried to have training, you know, best practices in terms of social media and how to handle it. And obviously, we’ve got a serious security team. So unfortunately, it was something that we thought might happen and we just try to be as careful as we can.”
Essiedu has said that while he’s “pretty sure” he’s not going to be murdered despite the online threats — a comment he caveated could “age badly” — he maintained that “nobody should have to encounter this for doing their job.”
“Many people put their lives on the line in their work. I’m playing a wizard in Harry Potter. And I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t affect me emotionally,” he said.
In addition to Essiedu, the cast features a trio of newcomers — Dominic McLaughlin, Alastair Stout and Arabella Stanton — as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, respectively.
They’ll be joined by a host of others, including John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore and Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall.
The series is expected to run for a decade, with each season based on one of the seven Rowling books. The books follow the story of 11-year-old Harry Potter as he learns of his acceptance to Hogwarts, the esteemed school of witchcraft and wizardry, and his attempts to defeat the evil Lord Voldemort.
There will be some differences between the HBO series and the much-loved Harry Potter films. Characters will be the same age they are in the books, meaning Snape will only be 31, and the Dursleys will also be much younger than in the movies.
The first season of the series, based on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, is due out Christmas Day on HBO Max.