Eddie Redmayne wanted to be Harry Potter’s biggest villain

We couldn’t imagine anyone other than Eddie Redmayne as Fantastic Beasts’ Newt Scamander, but he originally wanted to play the villain in Harry Potter.

Eddie Redmayne made his debut into the world of Harry Potter through the Fantastic Beasts movies. He was introduced as Newt Scamander in the first movie, taking on the lead role. But he wanted to enter the world of Harry Potter much earlier, and not as the hero of the story.

It turns out Redmayne was among the people who initially auditioned for Tom Riddle in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. He was in university at the time, which would have allowed him to get away with playing the role of a 16-year-old boy. However, it would be Christian Coulson who ended up with the role.

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While it would have been disappointing at the time, I’m not quite I see Redmayne as Tom Riddle. In fact, the rejection (he didn’t even get a callback, according to Screen Rant) was a blessing in disguise. Multiple actors played the role of Tom Riddle and then later Voldemort. By not getting the role of young Tom Riddle, Redmayne was able to get a much larger role in the franchise through the prequel spin-offs.

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There are still three more Fantastic Beasts movies to come, with the first of those coming in November 2021. The story is set in the years before Harry Potter. In fact, before Tom Riddle. Newt Scamander is set to help save the world from Grindelwald, showing us the story we’d only heard in the Harry Potter universe.

Could you have imagined Eddie Redmayne as Tom Riddle? What do you think of him as Newt Scamander? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Fantastic Beasts 3 is slated for release in November 2021.