Actor Tom Felton is set to reprise his role as Draco Malfoy in the Broadway production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, he announced on Thursday.
This is the first time that an actor from the original cast of the hit movie franchise has joined the stage play, which premiered on Broadway in 2018.
The Broadway play, which is an epilogue to the story of ‘The Boy Who Lived’ after the conclusion of the 7-part book series, opened in London's West End in 2016 before moving to New York two years later.
Set 19 years after The Deathly Hallows, the play, based on a script by JK Rowling, Jack Throne and John Tiffany, follows Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco and others sending their children to Hogwarts.
Felton shared a teaser on Instagram, in which he dons Draco's blonde wig and black robes. He wields his wand and asks in his signature manner, “Scared, Potter?” Sharing the clip, he wrote, “Guess who’s back.”
“It's surreal to be stepping back into his shoes - and of course his iconic platinum blond hair - and I am thrilled to be able to see his story through and to share it with the greatest fan community in the world,” Felton said in a statement.
“Joining this production will be a full-circle moment for me, because when I begin performances in Cursed Child this fall, I'll also be the exact age Draco is in the play,” he further said.
Felton will play the role at New York's Lyric Theatre for 19 weeks starting from November 11.
Fans could not keep their calm following the announcement, with several of them wishing that Felton played Draco’s father Lucius Malfoy in the upcoming Harry Potter reboot series by HBO. “I really wished he played Lucius Malfoy in the new Harry Potter series,” one of them wrote. “This is our 19 years later Draco we deserved,” another fan commented.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the highest-grossing non-musical play in the history of Broadway. It has sold more than 10 million tickets worldwide since its premiere in London in 2016. Productions of the play are currently running in London, New York, Hamburg and Tokyo.
After starring in the Harry Potter movies, Felton featured in the 2011 sci-fi movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He also made his West End theatre debut in the 2022 play, 2:22 A Ghost Story shortly after attending the shoot for the documentary Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts. In the same year, he published a memoir of his time as a young actor in the Potter franchise titled Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard.
Tickets for the upcoming Broadway production will go live on June 12, with a prebooking sale starting two days earlier.
Recently, HBO announced the cast of the golden trio for its upcoming Harry Potter reboot series. While Dominic McLaughlin will play the role of ‘The Boy Who Lived’, Arabella Stanton is set to feature as Harry’s geeky friend Hermione Granger and Alastair Stout as Harry’s red-haired bestie Ron Weasley.