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“Cursed Child”‘s Anthony Boyle Had No Idea Which Character He Was Auditioning For

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Anthony Boyle, who is currently playing Scorpius Malfoy in the West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, has revealed that he initially had no idea which character he was auditioning for.

The Belfast-born actor, who was named Most Promising Newcomer at yesterday’s Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, explained he had gone in to read for the part of “lead boy” and didn’t know who his character was until he was later given the script.

The first time I read the script was in a locked room with a security guard there, and another boy who was reading for Scorpius as well. At the time we were just reading for ‘lead boy’, and then we finally got to read the script, and I’m very dyslexic, and it took three hours to read two scripts.

Boyle even considered the possibility that he was auditioning for the role of a young Sirius Black:

It was completely not what I was expecting. I was expecting it to be about Sirius Black for some reason, I don’t know why, and I thought I was going to play a young Sirius Black. I was like, ‘Who is this dude?’

Scorpius Malfoy is a comedic character at the start, a bit of a clown, but the more I got emotionally involved in his story, and the more I turned the page, the more I fell in love with him and had an emotional connection to him.

The actor also revealed that the fact that he wears a blond wig in the show has helped preserve his anonymity, a luxury not shared by his co-star Noma Dumezweni, who plays Hermione.

I’m like a secret agent. It’s quite cool to walk about in Soho and not be recognized. Noma doesn’t have a hope in hell of not being recognised.

However, that anonymity has not prevented people from constantly asking him for tickets to the sold-out show.

Every day I get 100 people asking for tickets; my dad will ring me and say people have stopped him in the street, people are pulling up in cars in the centre of Belfast going, ‘Give us tickets to the show’.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is currently playing at the Palace Theatre in London, with the next batch of tickets set to go on sale in April 2017. For those of you who have managed to see it, what did you think of Boyle’s performance? Let us know in the comments.