Jamie Parker Talks The Magic of Harry Potter Live on Stage

In a new interview, Jamie Parker talks the magic of bringing Harry Potter to the live theater experience and how it feels to play a character so loved by all.

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Jamie Parker admits up front he was not a Potterhead when he was asked to take on the role of the Boy Who Lived, now middle aged in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In a new interview with The Stage where he discusses the career he’s had that brought him to this moment, he says that all that changed once he started to actually study the story in depth.

"“I was familiar with the books and read some of them, but I wasn’t a Potterhead. But it’s been great now to immerse myself in it – I’ve gone through all of them several times now, and I’m going to go through them again. I won’t stop making notes, and every day I am finding out exactly how detailed Jack [Thorne, the playwright] and John’s work on it has been with Jo [JK Rowling]….The play is perfectly clear to anyone who doesn’t know anything about Harry Potter – it’s just a very good play on that level. But for those who are immersed in it, there are Easter eggs hidden in every scene. There’s a lot that goes unspoken, and that’s fertile ground for being able to talk to each other onstage.”"

That’s good news to those who fear that–like some reviews from fans have suggested–this show is merely glorified fanfiction. None of that comes up in the interview, of course. But Parker is certainly focused on making sure the audiences understand how seriously he’s taken the honor of playing this character, and that, in his words, “I’m under no illusion the role of Harry Potter belongs to me.”

What he does talk about is how great it’s been to be embraced by the Potter community. The fans, he says, have been glorious, eating up the theatrical experience, and making his job as an actor portraying the character easier. And then there’s the matter of Daniel Radcliffe, who did own the role for so many years. “He’s been very classy and gentlemanly – he sent me his best wishes before our first preview.”

With the reviews pouring in praising the production, it looks like Parker will now have a second hit on his hands. (His first was starring in The History Boys, which went on to Broadway in New York and a movie.) So he’s been through this before. And he recognized from early on that, even before he saw the script, the production had lined up a murderer’s row to produce it (“people you’d give your eyeteeth to work with.”)

"“It’s not my responsibility solely. I know I’m only as good as the material I’ve got to work with. I’m not an alchemist, not when it comes to writing or production. You could argue that alchemy is part and parcel of what we do, but that responsibility is shared with the audience, and putting it on in the first place was Jack and John drawing from the wealth of Jo’s back catalogue and the layer upon layer of detail in there to create something that has its own emotional trajectory and its own legs. If I hadn’t thought that was apparent, even in that early draft, I wouldn’t have put myself in the position of taking on the amount of responsibility I do have – that would be a suicide mission.”"

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opens this coming Saturday, with the script books going on sale hours later at 12midnight.

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