Harry Potter Season 1's James & Lily Potter Casting Officially Confirmed By HBO

Published Oct 27, 2026, 8:00 AM EDT

Matthew Rudoy is one of ScreenRant's Movie & TV News Editors. He covers the latest in movie & TV news, with a focus on major franchises like Star Wars, The Boys, and Game of Thrones, and also writes some features and reviews. He wrote lists for ScreenRant from 2017-2022, became a news writer in 2023, a senior staff writer in 2024, and an editor in 2025. 

HBO's Harry Potter has found its James and Lily Potter.

Most of the new Harry Potter cast has been revealed ahead of the December 25 premiere, including Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, and Lox Pratt as Draco Malfoy. However, two prominent characters whose casting has been kept under wraps are Harry's parents, James and Lily.

Now, HBO has announced that Jasper Talbot and Hannah Chinn are playing the respective roles of James and Lily in season 1, also known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Additionally, Harry Gilby has been cast as Charlie Weasley, Ron's older brother who works with dragons.

Talbot previously starred in three episodes of the hit David Tennant series Broadchurch, Chinn portrayed a television news anchor in The Conjuring: Last Rites, and Gilby was in Netflix's The Last Kingdom season 5 and played a young J.R.R. Tolkien in the 2019 movie Tolkien. While they all have well-known titles in their filmographies, Harry Potter will be their most high-profile project yet, with roles that they can play for years to come.

As part of being more accurate to the novels, Talbot and Chinn are closer in age to the book versions of James and Lily than Adrian Rawlins and Geraldine Somerville were. Rawlins and Somerville played the adult versions of Harry's parents in the movies.

James, Lily, and Charlie do not appear in all the Harry Potter books, but given the extended format of a television series, the new adaptation has room to expand beyond the source material, potentially meaning more flashbacks with Harry's parents or other appearances for Charlie, not only in season 1, but in future seasons as well. The series has already been renewed for season 2 and begun production, with Kit Harington as Gilderoy Lockhart, Bonnie Hill as Ginny Weasley, Lenny Rush as Dobby, Billy Barratt as Tom Riddle, Molly Hewitt-Richards as Moaning Myrtle, and Jasper Ambrose as Colin Creevey.

Based on the events of the first novel, Harry sees his parents in the Mirror of Erised, and they appear in a photo album that Hagrid gives him. They will likely appear this way in the show, in addition to flashbacks. As for Charlie, he actually doesn't physically appear in the first book and instead sends his friends to extract the baby dragon Norbert from Hogwarts and deliver him to a sanctuary in Romania. Casting him for season 1 could mean that he will go in person to help Ron and get Norbert out of Hogwarts.

Bringing Charlie into HBO's Harry Potter also marks a change from the movies, where he never appeared other than in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, as he can be seen in a photograph of the Weasley family on vacation in Egypt, portrayed by Alex Crockford in an uncredited role. As was the case in the movies, James and Lily will need to be recast in later seasons when younger versions of them appear through memories in the Pensieve.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone premieres on December 25 on HBO and HBO Max.

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  Dominic McLaughlin

  Harry Potter

• Arabella Stanton

  Hermione Granger

• Alastair Stout

  Ron Weasley

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  Janet McTeer

  Minerva McGonagall