Whether these actors left fans behind during the franchise or after it had concluded, these losses
still left Harry Potter fans devastated. From Potions masters to Ministry officials to magical
creatures, here's a list of Harry Potter cast members you may not know passed away.
As soon as Harry Potter
arrives at his new home at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he meets his professors,
immediately clashing with the school's Potions master, Severus Snape. Throughout the series,
Snape unfairly antagonizes Harry and his friends, deducting points
over small mistakes and squabbles and favoring students from Slytherin House.
"Mr. Potter, our new celebrity."
The pair's animosity only gets worse when Snape is forced to try to teach Harry
the art of Occlumency, which could help Harry block his mind against Voldemort.
"Your lessons are at an end. Get out."
However, as it turns out, Snape was helping Harry all along. As a childhood friend of
Harry's mother Lily, Snape was always in love with her, and he pretended to serve
Voldemort while reporting to Dumbledore, risking his life as a double-agent.
Alan Rickman was the perfect choice to play the enigmatic Snape, who turns out to be one of the
series' most complex characters. Rickman brought this character to life, becoming
a beloved figure to millions of Potter fans. In 2016, Rickman lost his life to pancreatic cancer,
and fans, fellow actors, and co-stars alike paid their tributes to Rickman.
The role of Albus Dumbledore, Harry's wizened, caring mentor throughout the series,
required an actor with enough gravitas and heart to bring this part to life,
and for the first two Harry Potter films, Richard Harris played the character to
absolute perfection. A gentle giant whose kindness is never diminished by his incredible power,
Dumbledore serves as Harry's makeshift father figure and personal teacher,
sharing his boundless wisdom with Harry as he gets older. However, when Dumbledore dies at the
end of the sixth installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry must go it alone,
armed only with the lessons Dumbledore taught him along the way as he sets out to defeat Voldemort.
Dumbledore doesn't lose his life until the sixth film,
but unfortunately, audiences lost the first Dumbledore after only the second installment.
After making two Potter films, Harris was diagnosed with Hodgkins' disease in 2002,
and after he was hospitalized with pneumonia, he died in a London hospital. Michael Gambon
moved forward with the role of Dumbledore, but Harris' legacy lives on through his sons — one
of whom is the acclaimed actor Jared Harris, who has appeared in shows like Mad Men and Chernobyl.
Harry Potter faces
plenty of hardship throughout his life, and in his pre-Hogwarts years,
most of that turmoil is caused by the Dursleys, a trio of extended family members with whom Harry
spends an incredibly unhappy childhood. After his parents are killed by Voldemort, Harry must live
with his mother's sister, Petunia, her awful husband Vernon, and their dreadful son Dudley,
all of whom hate Harry for his magical ability and make his life as miserable as possible.
Despite the fact that Harry and the Dursleys hate each other equally, Harry must return to their
house every summer when Hogwarts is on break, making them important characters in the story.
"Any funny business, any at all, and you won't have any meals for a week."
As such, when it came time to cast the Dursleys, producers saw fit to cast Fiona Shaw and Richard
Griffiths, two titans of the British stage and screen, as Petunia and Vernon, respectively.
In addition to working on the Potter films, Griffiths teamed up with Daniel Radcliffe
to appear onstage in Equus from 2007-2009 on both London's West End and Broadway, but unfortunately,
their working relationship was cut too short far too soon. Griffiths lost his life to complications
from heart surgery in 2013. After losing his friend and co-star, Radcliffe led a touching
tribute to the legendary actor, saying he was, quote, "proud" to say he knew him.
Plenty of legendary
actors appeared in the Harry Potter film series, and few were more well-renowned than John Hurt.
As Harry goes shopping in Diagon Alley, he meets the mysterious, enigmatic Ollivander, the man who
provides wands to the entire magical community and tells him an important secret about his own wand.
"I wondered when I'd be seeing you, Mr. Potter."
Thanks to a magical bond between Harry and Voldemort, the wand that has chosen the young
wizard shares a core with Voldemort's, creating a lifelong connection. Later, Ollivander must help
Harry uncover the secrets of the Elder Wand in order to stop Voldemort once and for all.
Hurt played Ollivander in a handful of Potter films, including the first
and last, but you might also recognize this stalwart actor from V for Vendetta
and Indiana Jones, as well as a short stint as the War Doctor on Doctor Who,
and more. Hurt became a Knight of the Order of the British Empire in 2015 for services to drama,
but sadly, he passed away only a few years later in 2017 from complications from pancreatic cancer.
After Harry is officially introduced to the magical world by Rubeus Hagrid,
his first official entry into wizardry is when Hagrid takes him to Diagon Alley, the magical
street where witches and wizards can buy all of the supplies they need for spells, potion-making,
and more. In an otherwise non-descript Muggle street in London, Harry discovers the Leaky
Cauldron — a pub that seems to go totally unnoticed by any non-magical folk — and in the
backyard, wizards can gain entry into Diagon Alley by tapping a specific combination of bricks on the
wall. As the bartender of the Leaky Cauldron, Tom is an important background character.
"Bless my soul! It's Harry Potter!"
Tom only appeared briefly in the film series, but in the first film, he was played by British actor
Derek Deadman. Throughout his career, Deadman appeared in a variety of high-profile projects,
including A Streetcar named Desirée in 1991. Deadman passed away in 2014 at the age of 74
from complications from diabetes, leaving the Leaky Cauldron permanently unmanned.
Of course, the world of Harry Potter isn't all heroes: Voldemort has plenty
of bad guys under his thumb, one of whom is the dangerous werewolf Fenrir Greyback.
A ruthless and hungry monster, Greyback bites for fun to create a new army of werewolves.
During Half-Blood Prince, Greyback attacks the eldest Weasley son, Bill, dealing a devastating
blow to Harry and his loved ones, but he's ultimately taken down by the good guys.
Greyback required a particularly imposing actor, and Dave Legeno was up to the task.
A trained mixed martial artist proficient in everything from muay thai to judo to
boxing to Brazilian ju-jitsu. Legeno passed away in 2014 during a hike in Death Valley,
reportedly from problems caused by the extreme heat.
In the franchise's fourth installment,
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry finds himself faced with an entirely new challenge.
After his name is somehow placed in the champion-choosing Goblet of Fire for a
multi-school Triwizard Tournament, Harry must compete, much to everyone's chagrin. Throughout
the tournament, he encounters Barty Crouch Sr., a strict, high-ranking Ministry director overseeing
the operations of the tournament. However, what Harry learns later about Crouch is that he has a
tragic past — his son, Barty Crouch Jr., played by David Tennant, was previously arrested with
a group of Death Eaters, and he has returned with Voldemort's help to exact revenge upon his father.
Since Barty Crouch Sr. is such an established member of the Ministry, it stands to reason
that a venerated actor like Roger Lloyd Pack would be the one to play him. Pack worked
extensively on British television before he passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2014.
When it comes to magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe, few are more mysterious
than house elves. This subservient species tends to attach itself to a certain family,
performing cooking, cleaning… whatever their master asks. However, Harry ends
up with much more than he bargained for when he ends up owning Kreacher,
a surly house elf who once belonged to his late godfather, Sirius Black. After Sirius' death,
Harry inherited ownership of Kreacher, but it took Kreacher time to warm to him.
Visually, Kreacher was an entirely computer-generated character,
but he was voiced by Timothy Bateson, an established British voice actor.
Voicing Kreacher in the fifth movie, Order of the Phoenix, was Bateson's last role before
he passed away in 2009; for the rest of the series, Kreacher was voiced by Simon McBurney.
As Harry enters Diagon Alley for the first time, one of his first stops is Gringotts,
the vast wizarding bank that holds some of the magical world's most closely held treasures and
secrets. Just to add to its mystique, Gringotts is guarded by goblins, which are easily the most
secretive and cryptic magical creatures in Harry's world, and one of the first goblins
Harry meets is Griphook, who leads him down into Gringotts' dark and well-guarded vaults.
Though Griphook returns in later films, he's played by a different actor as the series
continues; in the first movie, Verne Troyer portrays the prominent goblin.
"And does Mr. Harry Potter have his key?"
Troyer has a fairly extensive film and television resumé, but most people likely
know him best as Mini-Me to Mike Myers' Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers franchise.
Tragically, Troyer passed away in 2018. His death was later ruled a suicide. However,
his performances in everything from Harry Potter to Austin Powers will live on forever.
When Harry arrives at Hogwarts, the magic within the school astounds him.
Food appears on tables as if by magic, he can wave a wand and make anything happen, the
staircases change frequently, and in an unnerving twist, the paintings on the walls move and talk.
One of those paintings, the Fat Lady, is in charge of guarding the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, and
in the films, she was played by British actress Elizabeth Spriggs. A Shakespearean actress,
Spriggs only made an appearance in the first film before her untimely death in 2008. Dawn French
replaced Spriggs as the Fat Lady, popping up in 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
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