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Role Call: Escape From Reality

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In this week’s Role Call, we visit a singing Gryffindor squire, an alien, a former bully from Dudley’s gang, and the Android Bill Weasley is falling for. Take a look at the current and upcoming projects the Harry Potter cast are tackling this week!

It’s been a long time since we’ve heard about any projects from Luke Youngblood, who played Lee Jordan in the first two Harry Potter films and voiced a character in the Order of the Phoenix video game. In case you haven’t been following him on Twitter, there is a little show you should be watching. Luke is currently starring in ABC’s Galavant as Sid, a squire to the titular character. The comedic musical aired 4 episodes in the last two weeks and has 4 more coming up. Make sure to check your local listings for showtimes or check the series out using On Demand!

John Cleese has a voice part in the upcoming Absolutely Anything, the final film of Robin Williams, who died last year. The film was given a Los Angeles screening on December 31 and LA Weekly spoke with the director of the “Python-esque sci-fi farce” about Robin before revealing to readers that Cleese and Python co-stars Eric Idle and Michael Palin were involved with the project, giving voices to extraterrestrials. The film is slated to air in the UK this July.

Alan Leech is opening up about working with Dame Maggie Smith on the hit PBS drama Downton Abbey. Besides helping him keep the etiquette of the show as true to the times as it should be, Leech states that working with Maggie entertaining:

..She’s the most fun ever. Between takes, she has me in fits. We all make mistakes with our lines, but the first person to enjoy that and make fun of it is Maggie. It puts you at ease immediately. And when she does it, she’s the first to go, ‘Oh my God, this is going terribly.’ She is a legend, she really is.

We previously reported on the confirmation of the Alice in Wonderland sequel, starring Helena Bonham Carter, Toby Jones, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Timothy Spall, and Rhys Ifans and now we can report that the sequel has a title: Through the Looking Glass. The film is currently in post-production, having wrapped principal photography in October. We should see the film in theaters beginning in May 2016.

A new clip from Domhnall Gleeson’s Ex Machina has been released this week, showing his character, Caleb, meeting the Android Ava. Take a look at the brief clip below, as well as some new stills from the film:

Domhnall will also be bringing the film to Ireland January 19 at a special screening at the Irish Film Institute, where both he and Alex Garland will attend. The film is set to open in the UK on January 23 and in the US on April 10. Tickets to the IFI special screening can be purchased here.

A new trailer for Big Game has been released, starring Jim Broadbent. The trailer shows us a few more clips that previously shown, giving us a better look at Jim’s character, even though we still don’t have any information on him. From the Finnish trailer, which you can see below, Jim does appear to have a role within the White House as you can see him give orders to have the President rescued after his plane crashes in the mountains. Take a look!

Some characters in the Harry Potter film series are there for only one scene and then we never hear from them again. However, we at MuggleNet love to see what ALL the cast and crew from the film series are doing post-Potter. Christopher Rithin, who portrayed Dennis in Dudley’s gang from the playground in Order of the Phoenix, just so happens to be one of those talented cast members who are continuing to move forward with their careers. Rithin has been busy creating an online series titled Outside the Box with his production company, Wolfpack Productions. Chris recently sat down with Hannah from Butterfly Wing Reviews to talk about his series and his time on Potter.

It’s been a while since the Harry Potter days, we’ve all matured and we’re doing new things. A piece of me will always belong to ‘Potter’, but I’m having fun tackling new characters. I think people will find Clive [the main character from OTB] a lot different to Dennis. He spends his time being nerdy and inventing pointless gadgets. He hasn’t got time to bully people.

You can take a look at the trailer for his series below and follow Chris on Twitter to see what other hijinks he and his team get up to! To read the entire interview with Chris, click here.

Finally, Imelda Staunton took part in a video interview with Catherine Tate and Into the Woods star Meryl Streep to talk about working in a Sondheim musical production. You can see the interview here:

That’s all for this week’s Casting News! Which projects are you most interested to see? Let us know which roles are your favorite and don’t forget to take your GNOMEs this week! Will you Exceed Expectations or will you have to sign up for a Squib course?