If there's one thing that the Harry Potter movies did exceptionally well,
it was casting the right actors for the series' many substantial roles. Despite
the intimidating number of memorable characters featured throughout the original Potter books,
the films always consistently managed to cast talented actors who were ultimately
well-suited to their roles. That wasn't just the case with the series' older figures either,
many of whom were played by legendary British stage and screen actors, but also with its
younger characters. Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe, for instance, were all
cast at young ages to play the franchise's central trio, and the three actors grew into
talented screen performers over the course of the series' eight film installments. Each of
the three have gone on to have successful acting careers outside of the Potter franchise as well.
However, the Harry Potter franchise ended up having to recast a handful of roles across its
eight installments. In fact, fans may be surprised to learn that, in the case of Lavender Brown,
the memorable character ended up being played by a total of three different actors.
Though she's not credited, actor Kathleen Cauley originally played Lavender Brown in 2002's Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Two years later, in 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner
of Azkaban, the character was played by Jennifer Smith, who had no lines but appeared in the
background a handful of times throughout the film. When Lavender became a major character in Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, though, she was played by Jessie Cave. She went on to reprise
the role two more times in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and in its 2011 follow-up,
Deathly Hallows Part 2. Many have often wondered why the role was played by three different
actors in the Potter films, but the folks at Fandom think the explanation is pretty clear.
As they tell it, the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince novel, which makes Lavender a
major character for the first time, was released in July 2005 after both the Chamber of Secrets
and Prisoner of Azkaban films were made. That means that, at the time of their release,
the teams behind those two films didn't know that Lavender would be a major character in the future.
Therefore, they likely just assigned the character name to Cauley and Smith in the Chamber of Secrets
and Azkaban films to help better organize those films' various background players.
ScreenRant theorizes that since Lavender's profile rose in the sixth installment,
the producers went with a more established actor in Cave.
Yet these explanations haven't stopped fans from raising concerns about the recasting.
Harry Potter film fans know that the Lavender Brown character grew in her impact on the
overall storyline in the sixth movie when she became a love interest for Ron Weasley
following his triumphant first match as the Gryffindor quidditch keeper.
As chants of "Weasley" echo in the Gryffindor common room, Jessie Cave's Lavender Brown
rushes in and starts making out with Ron. What those who've not read the books may not realize
is that the snogging was described as being "impossible to tell whose hands were whose."
“Lovely.”
That might sound like a bit much for a young adult franchise, but some have taken it literally
as an indication that Lavender and Ron have the same skin color, though it's entirely possible
the passage was meant figuratively to simply describe how intense the cuddle session was.
Regardless of how one interprets that particular line, it's indisputable that Lavender was first
played by two Black actors when the character had no lines and was recast with a white actor when
the character took on a larger role in Half-Blood Prince. Off Colour said it’s worth pointing out,
"The tone-deafness of recasting a role that had been played by two Black actresses
with a white actress as soon as the character is given a line.”
They concluded,
"[The recasting was] especially bad
since Harry Potter doesn't accurately represent Britain's great diversity."
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