byDaniel Okafor
Nov 14, 2026 2:07 pm
✓ Verified by editorial team
HBO cast Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape in 2025. Two trailers later, with the Christmas premiere six weeks away, a big chunk of the fandom still hasn’t made peace with it.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stonepremieres on HBO on Christmas Day, with Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, Arabella Stanton as Hermione, Alistair Stout as Ron, John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Nick Frost as Hagrid, Janet McTeer as McGonagall, and Paapa Essiedu, of I May Destroy You and Gangs of London, as Snape. The September trailer was supposed to build momentum toward the holidays. Instead, the comments went right back to the casting that has dominated the conversation since the first teaser in March.
Part of that backlash has been openly racist. Essiedu has said he received threats after he was cast, and HBO reportedly tightened security. That part isn’t a casting debate, and it isn’t what this piece is about. The rest of the complaints are ordinary fandom complaints, and they deserve to be taken at face value.
The case against
The loudest objection isn’t about Essiedu’s acting at all. It’s about the man who played Snape before him.
“Snape deserved better…. this feels like a downgrade nobody asked for.”
Another put it more simply: “Nobody is ever going to replace Alan Rickman as Snape.” Over eight films, Rickman turned a nasty potions teacher into one of the most beloved performances in the franchise, and for millions of fans he simply is the character. Some have floated their own picks; Adam Driver comes up a lot. Others think Essiedu is too glamorous for the part and suggested prosthetics to get him closer to the greasy, sour-faced figure on the page.
That’s the second complaint: the book. Rowling describes Snape as thin and sallow, with greasy black hair and a hooked nose, and HBO and Warner Bros. have promoted the series as a more faithful adaptation than the films. Fans holding the network to its own pitch aren’t being unreasonable.
The case for
The faithfulness argument has a hole in it, though, and it’s Rickman. Book Snape is in his early thirties during Philosopher’s Stone. Rickman was 54 when he shot it. Nobody called that a downgrade, because the performance was the point. One sarcastic reply on X caught the double standard: “Snape looks exactly like you described him! It’s a shame Alan Rickman was so miscast.”
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Essiedu has said he’s never seen the films, which means whatever he does won’t be a Rickman impression. For the people still angry, that’s the problem. For a lot of others, that’s exactly why it might work.
“Paapa Essiedu actually looks menacing here. The energy is right.”
HBO CEO Casey Bloys has said the network expected this reaction and planned for it. On December 25, the trailers stop mattering. The fans calling this casting terrible will be judging an actual performance, and that’s the only test that ever really counted for Rickman too.
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