{"id":546047,"date":"2026-03-26T08:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546047\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T08:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:19:08","slug":"harry-potter-set-beefed-up-with-serious-security-after-paapa-essiedu-hit-with-death-threats-over-snape-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546047\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Harry Potter’ set beefed up with ‘serious security’ after Paapa Essiedu hit with death threats over Snape role"},"content":{"rendered":"

HBO locked down its \u201cHarry Potter\u201d reboot<\/a> with tight security after one of its stars was hit with chilling death threats.<\/p>\n

Ghanian-English actor Paapa Essiedu \u2014 who portrays Professor Severus Snape on the show \u2014 has been flooded with disturbing messages ever since joining the cast of the TV series last year.<\/p>\n

Network boss Casey Bloys said the studio saw the backlash coming and put protections in place early.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paapa Essiedu will play Professor Severus Snape in the new \u201cHarry Potter\u201d TV series. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all actors on any kind of big IP shows \u2014 and this is obviously one of those where you\u2019ve got, you know, passionate fans, people with a lot of opinions \u2014 it can get scary in places,\u201d Bloys told\u00a0Variety<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for any show like that, we anticipated it and tried to have training, you know, best practices in terms of social media and how to handle it. And obviously we\u2019ve got a serious security team. So unfortunately, it was something that we thought might happen and we just try to be as careful as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Severus Snape was famously portrayed as a white character by Alan Rickman<\/a> in the blockbuster \u201cHarry Potter\u201d films, sparking a wave of racially charged backlash when Essiedu landed the role in 2025.<\/p>\n

Alan Rickman played Professor Snape in the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d movies. Warner Bros. <\/p>\n

In the books, Snape is the ultimate dark wizard vibe \u2014 sallow-skinned, greasy-haired, icy-eyed, feared by students but secretly loyal and deadly smart.<\/p>\n

Recently speaking to The Times<\/a>, Essiedu admitted the abuse he gets is constant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been told, \u2018Quit, or I\u2019ll murder you,’\u201d he said. \u201cThe 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\u00a0<\/p>\n

Essiedu has received endless death threats since being cast. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I hope I\u2019ll be okay, 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\u00a0\u201cHarry Potter\u201d. And I\u2019d be lying if I said it doesn\u2019t affect me emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Essiedu said he hasn\u2019t reported any of the online threats. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think some 17-year-old boy being put in jail for two weeks for threatening to murder me would actually make me feel any better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPotter\u201d movies actor Jason Isaacs slammed critics of Essiedu\u2019s casting as racist. Andrew H. Walker\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy in the \u201cPotter\u201d films<\/a>, slammed critics as racist and praised Essiedu as \u201cone of the best actors\u201d he\u2019s ever seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen some people online who are being rude about him. What they\u2019re being is racist,\u201d Isaacs said at Fan Expo Denver in July 2025.<\/p>\n

The new \u201cPotter\u201d series, due in 2027, is already tangled in wider controversy around creator JK Rowling and her outspoken views on transgender issues<\/a> \u2014 a firestorm that\u2019s driven a wedge between the author and several stars of the original films<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPotter\u201d author JK Rowling rejected calls for Essiedu\u2019s sacking despite his pro-trans views. FilmMagic<\/p>\n

In a sharp contrast to Rowling\u2019s views, Essiedu made clear where he stands. <\/p>\n

He told The Times that he believes \u201cartists in the trans community have a right to be treated with dignity and should be able to work without being intimidated.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May 2025, Rowling refused calls from her own supporters to fire Essiedu, saying she doesn\u2019t have the power to dump the actor and wouldn\u2019t use it even if she did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe in taking away people\u2019s jobs or livelihoods because they hold legally protected beliefs that differ from mine,\u201d\u00a0Rowling wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HBO locked down its \u201cHarry Potter\u201d reboot with tight security after one of its stars was hit with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,69749,88,9346,1035,16829,92],"class_list":["post-546047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-death-threats","tag-entertainment","tag-harry-potter","tag-hbo","tag-jk-rowling","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}