HBO’s Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone reboot has finally confirmed who will play the biggest character cut from Chris Columbus’ movie. We already know that HBO’s remake includes both scenes cut from the movie and also ones that weren’t even in the books, as the longer format of 8 episodes allows for a more faithful adaptation and less difficult decisions. That includes the reinstatement of one of the most iconic Harry Potter characters who always represented a significant challenge: Peeves the Poltergeist.
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British star Peter Serafinowicz – who famously played The Tick, voiced Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, and Nova Corps fighter Garthan Saal in Guardians of the Galaxy will play Peeves in HBO’s reboot, according to a new report by Variety. Serafinowicz also played the hero’s doomed housemate in Shaun of the Dead opposite Simon Pegg and new Harry Potter reboot co-star Nick Frost, who plays Rubeus Hagrid. If Harry Potter fans get their way, the trio will all be reunited, as a fan campaign has called for Pegg to be cast as Arthur Weasley following his voice performance as the character in Audible’s Potter series.
Why Peeves Was Cut From the Original Harry Potter Movies
Somewhat infamously, Peeves was actually cast for the first Harry Potter movie, with legendary British comedian and actor Rik Mayall set to play Hogwarts resident cheeky ghost. Despite filming for several weeks, Peeves was then cut entirely, meaning fans never got to see his ultimate redemption in the final movie when he joins the Battle of Hogwarts to defend his home after mostly terrorizing the students in the other books. Columbus explained that the cut was a necessity of time restrictions: “I think the thing I think about mostly is Peeves. The character of Peeves, we shot sequences, we did not have time to render Peeves in a CGI way.”
In his inimitable way, Mayall relayed his own experience on set with typically barbed humor before his death in 2014. He spoke in 2011 in an interview for the film Evil Calls about what happened, claiming he lied to his agent about Harry Potter being his favorite book, despite never reading a word. “I did a little bit of filming – then I went home and I got the money. Significant. And then a month later they ‘said they were sorry ‘Err, Rik, sorry about this… you’re not in the film. We’ve cut you out of the film…’ I was in the film for three weeks, and then they cut me out. But I still got the money.”
Mayall also revealed he’d been something of a disruptive influence on set, because he played his part too well: “I got sent off the set because every time I tried to do a bit of acting, all the lads who were playing the school kids kept getting the giggles, they kept corpsing, so they threw me off. Well, they asked me to do it with my back to them, and they still laughed. So they asked me to do it around the other side of the cathedral and shout my lines, but they still laughed so they said they’d do it with someone else. My lines.”
We already know what Peeves will look like in the Harry Potter reboot, thanks to concept art that showed up in HBO Max’s pre-release special feature. Here’s a look at the cleaned-up artwork, which now makes more sense with the reveal of Serafinowicz’s casting. The artwork always made Peeves look taller than I would have expected, nor quite as faithful to his description in the books. Serafinowicz has lots of voice work under his belt, so if Peeves is indeed fully CGI-rendered, there’s good stock behind the visuals. Presumably, his likeness will play some part in Peeves’ design, though that much is so far unconfirmed.
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