After months of speculation, HBO has announced part of the cast of the latest round of Harry Potter IP-mining: the new TV adaptation of the original books will feature John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Nick Frost as Hagrid – and Paapa Essiedu as Snape. As the Mail and Telegraph’s headlines were quick to inform their readers, yes, this means a “Black actor” in that iconic role.
There is a real concern that Essiedu is drinking from a poisoned chalice – that he will be associated with an author who is at the forefront of a gender-critical movement that has succeeded in redefining the rights of trans people to their detriment; that he will have to weather the racist storm of Potterheads enraged at the diversion from “book accuracy” (Snape is described as having “sallow skin”); and deal with opportunists looking to illustrate their next rant about how the world has succumbed to “woke orthodoxy”. All of this in a show that is slated to last a decade.
I’m sceptical about colour-blind casting, especially when it’s presented as a magic bullet for diversity concerns in the arts – but I can’t help but enjoy the audacity of Black Snape. If any performances from the original films were going to be rethought considerably – considering that casting so far is relatively aligned in appearance, bar a more handsome Quirrell – Snape is the most obvious choice. Alan Rickman’s depiction was so singular that any actor who hewed closely to it would likely be written off as doing a pastiche. He is also arguably the most complex and tragic figure in the series, inviting the most interpretation. So why not play around with it a bit?
Many detractors are insistent that they would’ve been OK with, say, a Black Dumbledore or a Black Professor McGonagall, but that the details of Snape’s arc within the series are made invariably more touchy and loaded if the character is Black. Harry and his friends’ suspicion of their potions professor is down to sensing a menacing, scheming intent behind his cold disposition. Cue the imagined new Snape going: Is it cause I’m Black? Harry’s dad, James, and his friends bullied Snape at school in the 1970s, making him levitate and then hanging him upside down. If unchanged in the new series (this somewhat depends on the casting of James’s friends) this could now look like an image of racist bullying. Perhaps that would make James Potter irredeemable, particularly considering the real experiences of Black people in boarding schools – or it could simply deepen the series’ depiction of vulnerability and torment.
It is worth pointing out that Snape being portrayed by a Black actor isn’t automatically the same as there being a “Black Snape”. HBO could simply gloss over the racial implications behind such a decision – after all, the bigotries and oppression system of “muggles” do not neatly map on to the magical world.
But, if executed well, this casting represents an opportunity. I am incredibly intrigued by this idea of a Black man who is socially ostracised in his youth and then joins the Death Eaters (akin to an extremist, white supremacist party in the real world); who realises the errors in his ways, and gives his life in service of redeeming this mistake. The story alone doesn’t necessarily need the dynamics of race, but who in our current times may be better placed to represent such internal conflict, yearning for acceptance and a defection from such ideologies than a Black actor?
In Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’ play Death of England, Essiedu masterfully played a Black working-class Brexit-voting bailiff in what was a compelling psychological profile of the alienation experienced in desperately trying to reconcile aspirations for whiteness in a world that hates you. Similarly, Snape’s backstory of joining the Death Eaters is complicated by him being a “half blood” who joins a blood purity cult advocating for a standard he does not meet. Rather than a hasty imposition on the text, dig a little and a Black Snape starts to look like a much richer prospect – and yes, not too complex for a children’s series where all the themes of prejudice, identity and acceptance are already present. Whether the creators will approach the issue with such consideration, sensitivity and context however remains to be seen.
Quiet as it’s been kept, Paapa Essiedu is one of the finest British actors that I’ve ever had the privilege to see perform – he is eminently commanding on the stage, emotionally precise and able to balance humour and solemnity. In his Emmy-nominated turn in Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, he expertly captured the sense of being haunted by trauma. So why shouldn’t he cash in on one of the series’ most iconic roles rather than settle for a minor side character so as not to upset those who would only find something else in the series to complain about anyway?
Behind the furore, though, is a much larger issue – about the kind of restrictions that are placed on the careers of Black actors and other creatives. Essiedu is a Black actor, where his colleagues are just actors. I am a Black writer, where my peers are just writers. Perhaps Essiedu being “too Black” for the role will mean some people give the TV series a miss. That’s fine, they can just wait for the next IP round.
Jason Okundaye is an assistant newsletter editor and writer at the Guardian. He edits The Long Wave newsletter and is the author of Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain
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