Actors come and go but their characters stay forever and David Thewlis is still Remus Lupin to me. Even when he’s in Wonder Woman.
Watching Wonder Woman with my family reminded me that sometimes, an actor (like David Thewlis) will always remind us of a certain role. My brother turned to me and said “That’s a real Remus Lupin if you ask me” and while I was the only one who got it, I realized that I too still thought of Thewlis as Lupin.
Now he’s also in a million other things (like The Big Lebowski just to name one). But still, he will always be Lupin to me. He’ll be the man broken because of the loss of his friends and his own disease who is reunited with his best friend and the son of the friend they lost.
Which, I guess, isn’t fair to David Thewlis. But then again, I can separate myself enough to know that this man is just an actor.
While the Golden Trio has moved on to other acting projects and we separate them from the Harry Potter franchise, it is more the actors who played professors that we continue to see as their iconic Potter roles.
For instance, when Alan Rickman died, many people tweeted “Always” in remembrance. Rickman, a very accomplished actor, was still seen as our Professor Snape. The same happened with John Hurt. Many tweeted about Ollivander.
It’s just the way we see these older actors as the characters we grew up with. Harry and his friends were more like our comrades but the professors and adults, that was different.
Next: The Harry Potter generation will never ‘grow out of’ this franchise
You can still catch David Thewlis in Wonder Woman and believe me, you’ll want to. He’s amazing as Sir Patrick but he’ll always be our werewolf friend, Remus Lupin.