Paapa Essiedu received the role of a lifetime in the Harry Potter series. Then the death threats began

British actor Paapa Essiedu has said he received race-based death threats following his casting as Severus Snape in the upcoming Harry Potter television adaptation.

“I’ve been told: ‘Quit, or I’ll murder you,’” the 35-year-old star said in an interview with The Times of London published at the weekend.

Essiedu was last April cast as Snape, Hogwarts’ Professor of Potions, in HBO Max’s highly anticipated television series. The emotionally complex role is a fan favourite, largely because the beloved Alan Rickman was the last to play it before his death in 2016. Essiedu’s casting triggered a race-fuelled backlash online, with some arguing a black actor should not play a character originally written as white.

Eventually, British actor Jason Isaacs – who played Lucius Malfoy in the films – directly called the abuse out.

“Paapa Essiedu is one of the best actors I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve seen some people online who are being rude about him. What they’re being is racist,” Isaacs said. “All the cast of the new Harry Potter TV series are amazing. They will be swallowing their tongues, hopefully – you know, their digital tongues – when they see what [Paapa] does on screen.”

“The reality is that if I look at Instagram I will see somebody saying: ‘I’m going to come to your house and kill you’,” said Essiedu, who has starred in Black Mirror and I May Destroy You.

“While I hope I’ll be OK, nobody should have to encounter this for doing their job. Many people put their lives on the line in their work. I’m playing a wizard in Harry Potter. And I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t affect me emotionally.”

However, Essiedu said the abuse fuelled his passion to make the iconic character his own.

“I think of how I felt as a kid. I would imagine myself at Hogwarts on broomsticks, and the idea that a kid like me can see themselves represented in that world? That’s motivation to not be intimidated by someone saying they’d rather I died instead of doing work I’m going to be really proud of.”

He hasn’t reported any of the death threats to the police, he said. “I don’t 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.”

But Essiedu noted that racist rhetoric remained an issue whether he paid attention to it or not, which was part of his motivation for joining the Harry Potter series, which will see him play Snape for a staggering 10 years.

“The themes that run through Harry Potter are of love triumphing over hate – of acceptance,” he said. “And that’s why I’m doing it.”

Some fans also questioned how Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling would respond to Essiedu’s casting. Just weeks after the actor was offered the role, he signed an open letter that called for the protection of trans rights after the UK Supreme Court ruled gender is defined by biological sex, prompting speculation his support was in opposition to Rowling, who has been accused of transphobia for her views on gender identity.

Original Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have also publicly supported trans rights.

There were calls for Rowling, who is co-producing the HBO Max series, to sack Essiedu. However, she said she “doesn’t have the power” and “wouldn’t exercise it if [she] did”.

Essiedu is not the first performer to face race-fuelled backlash after being cast in an iconic role. In 2022, debate erupted over the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. Some were so outraged over the fact she would not be white-skinned and blue-eyed that they sent the hashtag “NotMyAriel” viral.

Black and other non-white actors cast in predominantly white worlds such as Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Star Wars and Thor have also faced significant backlash. Failing to acknowledge that the performers could simply have been the most talented during auditions, trolls instead labelled such casting a marketing ploy used to bleed money out of social justice movements.

“At the end of the day, I got this job on the merit of my talent,” said Essiedu, who was the first black actor to play the lead in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet. If the calls to dismiss him from the Harry Potter series had worked, then “it wouldn’t be a project [he’d] want to work on anyway”.

The first season of the Harry Potter television series is scheduled to premiere on HBO Max in 2027.

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