Harry Potter's New Snape Actor Reveals The Death Threats He's Received
"Nobody should have to encounter this for doing their job."
Ever since it was announced that Paapa Essiedu would be taking up the cloak in the iconic role of Severus Snape in HBO’s new Harry Potter series, the English actor has faced intense, racist backlash. The insults have gotten so bad, that they’ve crossed the line into threats against the actor’s life, Essiedu recently revealed.
“I’ve been told, ‘Quit or I’ll murder you,’” Essiedu shared in a March 21 The Times interview. He went on to explain that this constant risk of danger has been unavoidable since his casting unveiled in April 2025. “It really matters. The reality is that if I look at Instagram I will see somebody saying, ‘I’m going to come to your house and kill you.’ So while I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be murdered… while I hope I’ll be OK, nobody should have to encounter this for doing their job. Many people put their lives on the line in their work. I’m playing a wizard in Harry Potter. And I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t affect me emotionally.”
Logging off doesn’t help to silence the hate, either. “Even if you successfully ignore it, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” Essiedu said. “The issue remains endemic and, anyway, people see stuff and message to ask if I’m OK.” He hasn’t reported any of the threats, because “I don’t think some 17-year-old boy being put in jail for two weeks for threatening to murder me would actually make me feel any better.”
Instead, Essiedu is using the racist messages as motivation to create an undeniable new interpretation of Snape. “The abuse fuels me. And makes me more passionate about making this character my own,” Essiedu said. “I think of how I felt as a kid. I would imagine myself at Hogwarts on broomsticks, and the idea that a kid like me can see themselves represented in that world? That’s motivation to not be intimidated by someone saying they’d rather I died instead of doing work I’m going to be really proud of.”
After Essiedu’s statement, HBO Boss Casey Bloys was asked how the network is protecting the new Harry Potter cast in a March 24 Variety interview.
“With all actors on any kind of big IP shows — and this is obviously one of those where you’ve got, you know, passionate fans, people with a lot of opinions — it can get scary in places,” Blys said. “So for any show like that, we anticipated it and tried to have training, you know, best practices in terms of social media and how to handle it. And obviously we’ve got a serious security team. So unfortunately, it was something that we thought might happen and we just try to be as careful as we can.”
