Harry Potter Star Admits They Forgot They Were in the Franchise While Watching Third Movie

It’s been two decades since the first live-action Harry Potter movie landed in theaters, a franchise that has included a total of eleven big-screen adventures, as well as dozens of other stories in a variety of mediums. The franchise is so expansive, in fact, that actor Evanna Lynch was recently sucked into a viewing of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and found herself wishing to have been a part of that story, only to recall that she did star in four films in the franchise. Lynch debuted as Luna Lovegood in the fifth movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which was filmed roughly two years after Prisoner of Azkaban.

“I don’t watch the films as it’s too emotional, but recently, Prisoner of Azkaban was on and my partner and I started passively watching it, and I had that strong feeling of, ‘I want to be part of that world,’ and then remembered, ‘Oh, I already am!’” Lynch recalled to CNET. “The fans have kept that world very alive in my life. I continue to try to find that sense of belonging in other communities, but none have proved quite so profound a match yet. So yes, I’ll always be happy to be a familiar face in the Harry Potter world.”

Lynch last appeared in the final film in the Harry Potter narrative, 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows –Part 2, with the franchise continuing in three Fantastic Beasts films. The last of those movies, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, was released in 2022 and, despite there being plans for two more films, that movie’s underwhelming performances with critics and at the box office have stagnated those plans.

In the years since the original Harry Potter franchise concluded, some figures from the series have distanced themselves from the story while others have continued to serve as ambassadors of the adventures, with Lynch being of the latter camp. The actor detailed what motivates her to stay so connected to that world, which includes lending her voice to the new audiobook From the Wizarding Archive.

“It’s a safe place for me. Perhaps there is a slightly regressive instinct there, returning to my childhood comforts… But it goes deeper, too,” Lynch detailed. “The feeling of belonging in a room has always been an elusive one for me. So then there is the Harry Potter world, where I have been not just accepted but embraced and celebrated, so it is an enormous privilege to have that warmth and familiarity to step into. Not every quirky kid finds that lifelong community.”

Harry Potter is set to be adapted into an all-new TV series for HBO.

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