JK Rowling<\/a> couldn\u2019t help but wade in. \u201cWarn me next time, for God\u2019s sake,\u201d she scolded Lewis on Twitter. \u201cI think that\u2019s one thing, if anything, that I learnt from that,\u201d says the actor. \u201cIt is what it is. You\u2019re not getting away from it, and that\u2019s fine, as long as people keep giving you work and it\u2019s not actually impacting you professionally, so what? Here I am, 10 years after that, still working. Put it this way, I\u2019m not in a position to whip my shirt off and do another one right now, I can tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\nI don\u2019t even know if Matthew McFadyen knows the impact that he had on me during those two years that I spent with him<\/p>\n
Matthew Lewis<\/p>\n
When we speak, Lewis is at home in Florida. He met his American wife, Angela, whom he married in 2018, when she was working at an event at Universal Studios in Orlando, the home of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. He has a stubbled jaw and bleach-blonde highlights running through his hair. Some of the Longbottian stuttering remains, though only because there are so many thoughts struggling to coalesce in his mind at once. They eventually erupt from his mouth in a thick Yorkshire drawl. \u201cI\u2019ve kind of had this weird thing throughout my life, where things that I like somehow have a habit of creeping into my life,\u201d he tells me. \u201cFor example, Harry Potter. I was a huge fan of the books before I got involved in the films. I\u2019m a big Leeds United fan and I\u2019ve somehow ended up hosting the club\u2019s podcast for four years.\u201d He was \u201ccompletely enamoured\u201d by Coles when he chanced upon him on Have I Got News For You one night, and so when he received the script based on his book, he knew, \u201cI\u2019m probably gonna get this.\u201d Could it be divine intervention, I tease. He glances at a conspicuous silver chalice on a shelf behind him. \u201c\u2018Perhaps!\u2019 he said, with the cup of Christ over his shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2018I\u2019m very much drawn to the mysticism and the ritual [of organised religion],\u2019 says Lewis (AcornTV)<\/p>\n
Such providence has landed Lewis his first lead role in a major TV series with Murder Before Evensong. He admits he felt pressure to set the tone for the rest of the cast on set. \u201cBeing a lead actor is more than just performance; it comes with a degree of leadership,\u201d he says. Fortunately, he had excellent role models to draw from. He cites Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who \u201cwould spend more time with the crew than anyone else\u201d and \u201cmake sure everyone was happy and comfortable, even when he was really focused on what he was doing\u201d. His Ripper Street co-star Matthew McFadyen is another. \u201cI don\u2019t even know if Matthew knows the impact that he had on me during those two years that I spent with him,\u201d Lewis says. Ultimately, he wants his set to be somewhere where actors can experiment, even if they fall short of the mark. \u201cYou can shoot for the stars, and if you fail, it\u2019s fine,\u201d is his mantra. \u201cI see some actors with different approaches, whatever, I\u2019m sure they\u2019re all tortured geniuses. But if you\u2019re not having fun, what are you doing? Like, it\u2019s a stupid job. We put on stupid clothes for a living. Get the stick out your arse and just enjoy yourself!\u201d<\/p>\n
A new trio of young leads will soon emerge in the highly anticipated TV adaptation of Rowling\u2019s Harry Potter saga for HBO. Lewis is reluctant to speak about the new iteration, though. \u201cI haven\u2019t really thought about the series as a whole at all, really, and I\u2019ll probably have to pay my therapist for a double session when I finally do think about it,\u201d he jokes. Neville, too, will be reincarnated, but Lewis has not reached out to Rory Wilmot, the 10-year-old cast in his former role, with advice. However, he\u2019s pleased that the child actor hails from the same neck of the woods as him. \u201cI feel quite humbled in that Neville is now canon Yorkshire. Whether that\u2019s a tribute to me or not, I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m gonna say that it is. But the last thing [the new cast] needs is for has-beens wading in, just let them cook.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"As](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/child-actors-potter.jpg\")
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As Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter franchise (Warner Bros)<\/p>\n
This next generation of Hogwarts stars will face a level of scrutiny the original cast never had to deal with, thanks to the controversy surrounding Rowling and her outspoken views on transgender rights. It\u2019s a topic that makes every former Potter actor bristle as they reconcile with the author who has given them so much, yet indisputably muddied her legacy and that of the films. Lewis told the i in 2021 that he believes everyone should be \u201centitled to be whoever they want to be\u201d, but questioned whether the debate needed the opinion of another straight white man. His answer is just as measured when I ask if he would work with the embattled novelist again. \u201cI think that it would largely depend on what the project is,\u201d he says. \u201cI guess that every case has to be taken on its merits.\u201d He has deliberately been off social media for over a year now and admits he is happily out the loop. \u201cI\u2019d have to have a conversation about the things that you\u2019re referring to, and I\u2019d want to make sure I was totally comfortable squaring it with my own beliefs and opinions before moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a thorny subject, but one that Lewis believes is a fair cop, comparing it to the scrutiny footballers face when moving to Saudi Arabia for vast paycheques. \u201cI don\u2019t think I should be a role model for anyone, frankly, but I am aware that, for better or worse, people may see me as that, and so I don\u2019t think it\u2019s unfair to ask these questions.\u201d He might be a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, but in moments like this, Lewis sounds not unlike Canon Daniel himself, who reflects in Coles\u2019s novel: \u201cWe are imperfect people called to perfection, so get used to failure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Murder Before Evensong\u2019 airs on Channel 5 on 29 September and on Acorn TV in the US<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-163837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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