Nicholas Hoult brought on board to portray wizard Gilderoy Lockhart in 'Harry Potter' TV series

Los Angeles [US], August 12 (ANI): Hollywood actor Nicholas Hoult, best known for featuring in the ‘X-Men’ films, has been brought on board to feature in the second season of HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series.

According to a Deadline report, Nicholas Hoult will portray the character of Gilderoy Lockhart, who was seen in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’. It was originally portrayed by Kenneth Branagh in the film.

Speaking about the Hoult’s character, Gilderoy Lockhart is a notoriously vain, boastful and fame-obsessed wizard, who is well versed in Memory Charms. He is recruited by Dumbledore as Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.

He has also authored several books on dark creatures and his encounters with them.

While Dominic McLaughlin stars as the titular Hogwarts wizard, Harry Potter, Alastair Stout and Arabella Stanton feature as Harry’s best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger respectively. Other key cast members are Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid, John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Janet McTeer as Professor McGonagall.

HBO’s adaptation, which is reportedly planned as a seven-season spectacular with each season tackling one novel in J K Rowling’s epic book series, has always planned to “go deeper” than the films.

“The scope of the production, the detail, meticulousness of what they’re going through and what they’ve built takes theatrical to just a whole different level,” JB Perrette, WBD’s president of global streaming and games, said last year.

Greenlighted in May, the shooting of ‘Harry Potter Season 2’ is scheduled to begin this fall, ahead of the Christmas premiere of Season 1, which is titled ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’. It will air on HBO and will be exclusively stream on HBO Max. (ANI)

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