• By MuggleNet Editorial Staff
• 11 Aug, 2026
• Latest

Nicholas Hoult’s long and slightly improbable history with the Wizarding World is getting a new chapter.

Hoult has been cast as Gilderoy Lockhart for the second season of HBO’s Harry Potter series, which will adapt Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Season 2 is expected to begin filming any day now, before the first season has even made its debut.

Hoult is an intriguing choice for one of Hogwarts’s most spectacularly self-impressed professors. Most recently seen as Lex Luthor in Superman, he has also shown off his talent for comedy in projects including The Great and The Menu. That last title gives him an existing connection to the Harry Potter series: The Menu was directed by Mark Mylod, who serves as an executive producer and director on HBO’s adaptation.

In fact, Hoult was openly talking about the possibility of joining the series just last year. During a June 2025 appearance on Today, he praised Mylod and the Harry Potter stories before joking that he now had the director’s phone number and could ask whether he was still too old to play Harry.

That joke came with some history attached. Hoult actually auditioned for the original Harry Potter films as a child, putting him among the young actors considered during the search that ultimately resulted in Daniel Radcliffe becoming the Boy Who Lived.

And that was not his only near miss with the Wizarding World. In 2015, when Warner Bros. was searching for the lead of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Variety reported that Hoult was among the actors considered for Newt Scamander before Eddie Redmayne landed the part.

So, rather remarkably, Lockhart will bring an actor who was once in the mix to play Harry Potter and later Newt Scamander into the franchise more than two decades later.

Hoult will follow Kenneth Branagh, who portrayed Lockhart in the 2002 film adaptation of Chamber of Secrets. There is another recent Lockhart in the mix too: Kit Harington voices the character in Audible and Pottermore Publishing’s new full-cast audio editions of the books.

Considering Lockhart’s fondness for celebrity, casting an established star for Harry’s second Defense Against the Dark Arts professor feels appropriate.

After roughly 25 years of almost making it into the Wizarding World, Hoult has apparently found the role that finally sticks. Gilderoy Lockhart would probably insist that was the plan all along.

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Image: Harald Krichel for Wikipedia as part of the Wikiportraits initiative.