Harry Potter Reboot Just Cast the Dursleys — And Fans Love It
The Harry Potter reboot just found its Vernon and Petunia Dursley — and for once, the internet's not mad.
HBO has cast Bel Powley (Masters of the Air, The Morning Show) and Daniel Rigby (Flowers, I, Jack Wright) as the wizard-hating suburbanites who raise Harry in their charming little cupboard. And unlike the original films, this time the Dursleys might actually be the right age.
In the books, Vernon and Petunia are in their early to mid-30s when Sorcerer's Stone kicks off. But in the movies, they were played by Fiona Shaw and Richard Griffiths, both in their 50s — great actors, but the age gap always added an unspoken layer of "why do these people look like they could be Harry's grandparents?"
With Powley (32) and Rigby (41), HBO seems to be going back to the canon ages, which means we're probably getting a slightly more grounded, less cartoonishly grumpy version of the Dursleys. Or at least grumpy with context.
And yes, the age-appropriate casting for Petunia likely means Lily Potter will finally be played by someone her actual age, too — another quiet course correction that brings back some of the emotional weight the original series kind of glossed over. The tragic part about Lily's death was that she was barely out of her twenties, not that she looked like she was about to hit retirement.