Paapa Essiedu Reimagines Snape for HBO Max — SkimNews
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- Paapa Essiedu appears in HBO’s first-look image as Severus Snape wearing shoulder-length dreadlocks, a zip-up leather jacket and an oversized black cloak, a visual break from Alan Rickman’s buttoned-up robes.
- Paapa Essiedu said aesthetic matters even though style is not foremost in his mind, adding that Snape’s appearance communicates both who he is and who he wants people to think he is; he credited the costume department’s collaboration.
- Paapa Essiedu said the racially motivated death threats over the casting fueled his effort to make Snape his own, while maintaining that the work was his priority and he would not have taken the job if he could not handle the backlash.
- Paapa Essiedu credited the “Harry Potter” team with strong support after the toxic online backlash, citing good wishes and excitement, and said it was time for audiences to engage with what the production had made.
- Paapa Essiedu was honored among Time’s 100 rising stars; his résumé includes being the first Black actor to play Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2016, winning the Ian Charleson Award and earning two BAFTA nominations for “I May Destroy You” and “The Lazarus Project.”
- Warner Bros. executives touted the “Harry Potter” series as the “streaming event of the decade,” while Season 1, based on “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” will debut on HBO Max on Dec. 25.
Why it matters: The material change is to Snape himself: Essiedu’s dreadlocked, leather-jacketed version departs from Alan Rickman’s buttoned-up look. For HBO Max and Warner Bros., the Dec. 25 launch now pairs that creative reimagining with the actor’s disclosure of racially motivated death threats and the support he says the team offered.
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