Five Reasons Paapa Essiedu Is a Good Casting Choice as Professor Snape in the New Harry Potter
From his Shakespearean roots to his commanding screen presence, here’s why the Ghanaian British actor is a strong fit for the iconic Harry Potter role.
Paapa Essiedu attends the 2024 Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards at Claridge's Hotel on November 5, 2024. Essiedu is set to play Professor Severus Snape in the upcoming Harry Potter series.
When British Ghanaian actor Paapa Essiedu was announced as the new "Professor Severus Snape," the eternally broody but deeply memorable faculty member of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the reaction was mostly disapproving. Many reactions are similar to those that arise when actors of different races are cast in roles previously played by white actors. The disapproval often boils down to an unwelcome revision of characters who are already loved and identified in a specific way.
In the original Harry Potter book series, Snape is described as having sallow skin and greasy black hair, and in the original films was played by Alan Rickman. The prevailing argument remains that details are mutable when it comes to fiction. Imagination is the very demand of the genre. Our ability to rethink existing traditions and forms is what truly matters and moves any work of imagination forward.
However, as skepticism around Essiedu's fitness for the role continues to rise, here are reasons why he is perfect for this role.
Essiedu makes a strong impression in "I May Destroy You"
For many, their first major introduction to Essiedu's work might be in the HBO hit seriesI May Destroy You, created by Michaela Coel. In the role, he plays Kwame, the steadfast friend of Arabale (Coel), a writer struggling to finish her book while reeling from a traumatic experience. Essiedu, as Kwame, is a believable and instantly lovable character who manages to infuse depth into a role that could have played out without nuance. His ability to emote a self-contained pensiveness would greatly serve him as he begins to play Snape, a notoriously gloomy man with a strong sense of unease and distrust of the world.
His acting range makes him a great fit for the role
Essiedu began his career in 2012, appearing in several theater productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company. These productions include The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, and King Lear. Away from the stage, Essiedu has starred in several impressive film projects, including The Lazarus Project, The Outrun, The Miniaturist, Gangs of London, The Capture, and others. His performance in Hamlet was praised for a seamless delivery of complexity in character.
Why not?
Marlon James once said, "There is a thrill, particularly when you are young, to see somebody like yourself in a story. There is. And it's something you notice when there's the absence of it." Although the casting of Essiedu is not exactly a highly sought-after means of representation, as it is still a work of fantasy, the reactions to his casting beg the question of why not? Why can't Snape be Black? His skin color has no direct consequence on the motivations and behaviors of the character, so why can't this well-known character be seen through a different lens?
The material is built on fantasy
Harry Potter is a work of fiction and fantasy. By the definition of fiction as literature created from one's imagination and not fact, it provides much room for experimentation. This is what this new Harry Potter seeks to do. This is what fiction should be allowed to be. Unpredictable, exciting, resistant to tradition, and attentive to the changes in the world, to reflect it and complement it.
As Noah Berlatsky writes in The Atlantic while condemning the backlash Michael B. Jordan received when he was cast as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four franchise, "Comics are serial soap-opera fantasies; people change costumes, grow blue fur, die, grow a third eye, come back to life, are replaced by a clone and turn to the dark side. Nothing stays the same. Why, then, is this particular, relatively minor alteration in canon seen as a betrayal?"
It takes the story in an interesting direction
In the various forms that the Harry Potter series has taken shape, from films to theatre productions, the primary way in which the story has been carried forward has been by challenging the notion that fictional characters, especially those in mythical or fantastical settings, should automatically be white or bear caucasian characteristics.
In 2015, Noma Dumezweni - a British South African actor - was cast as Hermione in a London stage production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. That moment reminded fans of the work that Hermione was never explicitly described as white in the book and so could be of any race.
With this new series, which many say will take more risks to avoid being a copy and paste of the films by deepening the storyline's spirit, this casting presents an opportunity to make a well-known story truly interesting again.
By rethinking beloved characters and seeing how other actors interpret their roles and approach their sensibility and motivations, the upcoming Harry Potter series allows itself to go beyond just a good, already-loved storyline.
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