James McAvoy reveals he was nearly cast as Tom Riddle in Harry Potter
Enemies of the heir beware. James McAvoy reveals he was nearly cast as Tom Riddle in 'Harry Potter': 'They offered quite a lot of money.' https://t.co/uiiCDJJQFr
- Entertainment Weekly (@EW) September 14, 2024
On the advice of his agent, James McAvoy dropped out of consideration for the role of Tom Riddle in Harry Potter despite the fact that he'd be making bank. McAvoy explained that remaining in contention would have kept him out of work for seven whole months.
"I was nearly in Harry Potter.I remember it was right at the beginning of my career. I auditioned for it and I think they wanted to put me on a retainer. I'd hardly done any work and me and I think ten other actors, they wanted to put us in a retainer so that they could hold us and keep us to choose later. It was a really strange thing. And they offered quite a lot of money. For me at that time, it was a ton of money. It was like 40 thousand pounds or something like that. I’d done very little work and I wouldn’t be able to do any work for about seven months, I think."
McAvoy ended up doing a play.
"I got booed by a homophobic gentleman. I did that instead and got paid I think 275 pounds a week. But hey, no regrets. It was part of the making of me. I was actually learning and doing all that."
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