My daughter and I have been trying to think of names of English actors with distinguished careers who have somehow not yet been able to make their way into a Harry Potter movie. Either we have little imagination, or most of that community has already managed to cash in. There are, however 3 more opportunities to clear the list. Let’s maybe say “distinguished” means having an Oscar (or even Baffie) nomination, or a knighthood/ladyhood, but feel free of course.
So far, we have Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Anthony Hopkins, and Ian McKellen. Who else are we missing?
Ian Richardson, Sean Bean, Jennifer Saunders, Bob Hoskins, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Robert Carlyle, Daniel Day Lewis, Rowan Atkinson, Joseph Fiennes, Kathy Burke, Hugh Grant, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Kate Beckinsale, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee…
I see that the OP specified ‘English’ rather than ‘British’ but I’m going to carry on anyway…
Charles Dance, Michael Palin, Michael Caine, Billy Connolly, Edward Fox, Sir Richard Attenbrough, Joss Ackland, Brenda Blethyn, Jane Horrocks, Colin Firth…
hammos1, the OP also specified “distinguished,” in the context of acting.
Michael Palin, Billy Connolly, Jane Horrocks, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Rowan Atkinson are all awesome and can have any number of superlatives applied to them, but they are none of them “distinguished actors.”
Don’t even bother to bring up Stephen Fry’s performance as Oscar Wilde. That wasn’t acting, and The Portrait of Dorian Gray is a roman a clef.
It’s already been pointed out that it would have been better to ask about British actors rather than English ones. Indeed, it would have been better to ask about British and Irish actors, since some of the actors in the films have been Irish. That actually makes sense, since if you read the novels carefully, Hogwarts is supposed to be the wizard school for all of the British Isles. Similarly, Beauxbatons is supposed to be the wizard school for all of the French-speaking parts of Europe and Durmstrang is supposed to be the wizard school for all of the German-speaking parts of Europe and for some of Eastern Europe too. (Well, at times it appears that Beauxbatons is entirely female and Durmstrang is entirely male, which makes no sense, but then the entire Harry Potter series is pretty inconsistent.)
Tim Roth. He would’ve been perfect for the role of Snape, but he passed on it to do that crappy Planet of the Apes remake. I’m hoping they’ll forgive him and hire him to do some other HP movie roll instead.
