How Jack Whitehall ‘Flunked’ His Audition For Harry Potter

11 September 2024, 10:15 | Updated: 11 September 2024, 17:20

Jack Whitehall auditioned for Harry Potter as a child. Picture: Getty/Alamy

By Kathryn Knight

"It was a great example of how nepotism doesn’t work."

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Jack and his dad Michael Whitehall joined Capital Breakfast on Wednesday morning to talk about their new TV show Fatherhood with my Father and the guys got chatting about the new series of Harry Potter which is currently looking for students to audition.

The auditions for the new show had Jack reminiscing on the time he auditioned for the movies as a child, telling his dad he “really wanted to be Harry Potter”.

However, things didn’t go as planned…

He told us: “I went to a school where they had an open audition at the school and the casting directors were gonna come and they were gonna do this audition.

“And I told Michael I’d love to go and audition for Harry Potter and he was a casting agent at the time. He said, ‘oh no, no one ever gets cast from those, complete waste of time, don’t worry’ – nepotism at work – ‘I’ll get you an interview with a casting director and you can do a one on one audition.’

Jack Whitehall with his dad Michael Whitehall. Picture: Getty

“So he drove down, pulled me out of school and took me to my audition. I hadn’t actually read the book so I completely flunked it.”

Michael fumed: “You didn’t read the book! I did all that for you. I got you out of school, I got one of the top casting directors in the UK to give you an individual one to one interview. You got the book two weeks in advance… so that you could prepare.”

Jack revealed he ‘flunked’ the opportunity when he mentioned ‘Orcs’ which are famously from the Lord of the Rings and not Hogwarts…

He recalled: “I got asked a coupe of questions, I think I made a reference to Orcs, so that was the moment I was rumbled. So I didn’t get the part, it was a great example of how nepotism doesn’t work. Because in the open casting that anyone could apply for, Emma Watson auditioned and she got the part of Hermione.”