{"id":358595,"date":"2026-03-22T00:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T00:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/358595\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T00:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T00:49:08","slug":"harry-potter-star-paapa-essiedu-says-hes-received-death-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/358595\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Harry Potter’ Star Paapa Essiedu Says He’s Received Death Threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cHarry Potter<\/a>\u201d actor Paapa Essiedu<\/a> says he has received race-fuelled death threats over his casting as Professor Snape in the upcoming HBO Max adaptation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been told, \u2018Quit or I\u2019ll murder you,\u2019\u201d Essiedu told The Sunday Times of London<\/a> in a new interview.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt really matters. The reality is that if I look at Instagram I will see somebody saying, \u2018I\u2019m going to come to your house and kill you.\u2019 So while I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m not going to be murdered\u2026That could age badly! But, yes, while I hope I\u2019ll be OK, nobody should have to encounter this for doing their job. Many people put their lives on the line in their work. I\u2019m playing a wizard in \u2018Harry Potter.\u2019 And I\u2019d be lying if I said it doesn\u2019t affect me emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEssiedu is set to play potions master Snape \u2014 one of Potter\u2019s nemeses \u2014 in the upcoming streaming adaptation, a role previously played by Alan Rickman. His casting ignited backlash from toxic fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut the abuse fuels me,\u201d he continued in the interview. \u201cAnd makes me more passionate about making this character my own, because I think of how I felt as a kid. I would imagine myself at Hogwarts on broomsticks, and the idea that a kid like me can see themselves represented in that world? That\u2019s motivation to not be intimidated by someone saying they\u2019d rather I died instead of doing work I\u2019m going to be really proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor, who has appeared in \u201cBlack Mirror\u201d and \u201cI May Destroy You,\u201d admitted he\u2019d never seen the original movies, which starred Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, but had been a fan of J.K. Rowling\u2019s book series as a child. \u201cI was an avid reader as a kid,\u201d he said. \u201cMy mum couldn\u2019t afford a babysitter in the holidays, so she would take me to the library. I loved \u2018Harry Potter.\u2019 I never saw the films but the books were escapism when other things were less easy for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new series is set to launch on HBO Max in 2027 with an (almost) entirely new cast. The central trio will be made up of Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger and Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley.<\/p>\n

\n\tEssiedu has signed onto the series for ten years and told The Sunday Times it was a \u201cbig commitment.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll be 45 by the time I finish,\u201d he said, \u201cand I know my life is going to change in a big way, but I have to just surrender to that. I could have children by the end of this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHarry Potter\u201d actor Paapa Essiedu says he has received race-fuelled death threats over his casting as Professor Snape…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,14293,61,60,270,162456],"class_list":["post-358595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-harry-potter","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-paapa-essiedu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}