HBO Finally Unveils Its Best-Kept Harry Potter Secret Next Month

Published Nov 7, 2026, 10:15 PM EST

Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy. 

Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones).

December 2026 will be an absolutely massive month for the Harry Potter franchise, no doubt about that. Christmas Day will bring the premiere of HBO's TV remake, and, love it or hate it, that's a pretty significant event. To make things even more thrilling, the premiere for Harry Potter season 1 will be a whopping 2 hours long, making it more like a feature film than an episode. This much time dedicated to only an eighth of the story means a whole lot of content right off the bat, and that should include the answers to some key secrets.

Despite several dozen important casting announcements for both Harry Potter seasons 1 and 2, there has been no word on who will play the adult Lord Voldemort in the TV remake. Actor Billy Barratt will take on the role as the teenage Voldemort, Tom Riddle, in later installments, but that's the extent of what has been revealed. It's been theorized that Voldemort hasn't been cast yet, but, given the extended nature of Harry Potter season 1 and its premiere, this seems extremely unlikely.

Lord Voldemort wasn't much of a physical presence in the first three Harry Potter movies, since he didn't yet have a body. It wasn't until Goblet of Fire that Ralph Fiennes stepped into the role. It's certainly possible that HBO's TV show is taking the same approach, but it's important to remember that Harry Potter season 1 is set to include several additional key moments related to Harry's story. That first episode alone is all but guaranteed to include the murders of James and Lily Potter, as well as other Voldemort-centered scenes.

One way or another, someone will have to play the version of Voldemort seen on the back of Quirrell's head in Philosopher's Stone.

HBO will want to avoid having one actor play Voldemort in season 1 just to be replaced by another later on, as the Harry Potter movies did. Also, if that premiere is going to dive deeper into the story's context—Voldemort's war, the deaths of James and Lily, the moment of Harry's miraculous survival—then an alive-and-well villain should be seen on screen. Signs point to the truth that there is an actor out there who knows they are the new Voldemort and has already begun their work. HBO just isn't ready for us to know yet.

Why HBO's Harry Potter Would Keep This Casting Secret

As it is, HBO hasn't left much below the surface. The trailers for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (the official full title for season 1) set high expectations, and HBO even gave us a behind-the-scenes documentary, Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic, to unveil further secrets. Even before the TV show premieres, there have been a good handful of casting announcements for season 2. It seems the new Harry Potter aims to keep audiences as involved in the process as possible—but Voldemort is the exception.

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The most likely reason is that the actor selected to play Voldemort is one audiences will be very familiar with. Several names would be pretty big news, including any of the Harry Potter movies' original cast or popular fan suggestions such as Cillian Murphy, Paul Bettany, or Benedict Cumberbatch. There would be no reason to keep this secret if it wouldn't mean much to the general public, so we can expect an A-lister.

The next big question here is when the secret will finally be revealed. Voldemort's face doesn't have to appear in Harry Potter season 1 until the end when Harry finally confronts him. However, that long premiere episode is, once again, an intriguing hint that we will get far more right off the bat. This would be the moment to break the news—another reason for the premiere to be simply magical. Only time will tell, but HBO's big Voldemort secret could be just a month away from surfacing.

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  Dominic McLaughlin

  Harry Potter

• Arabella Stanton

  Hermione Granger

• Alastair Stout

  Ron Weasley

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  Janet McTeer

  Minerva McGonagall