Who will play Lord Voldemort on the forthcoming Harry Potter television series? That appears to be a question many people are asking themselves as the extremely polarizing HBO revival approaches, with rumors and conjecture dominating the internet and numerous names being thrown into the mix.
Since the HBO revival was announced, there has been much debate on who should be cast in the show. With filming already started for a 2027 release date, many of the show’s important roles have been cast and revealed, but the series’ main antagonist remains unknown.
Below, we’ve compiled all you need to know about Voldemort in the new HBO Harry Potter series, from reported actor choices to how the character might relate to its book and film equivalents.
If we want to know who will play Voldemort in the new Harry Potter series, we should look back at who played the Dark Lord in the first Harry Potter film epic, and the answer is: quite a few people.
While most of us connect the role with English actor Ralph Fiennes, he was not the only actor to play Voldemort. Richard Bremmer played Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, making him the first actor to do so. He appears briefly as a cloaked man in a Godric’s Hollow flashback scene, where Hagrid tells Harry how he received his notorious scar. Later in the film, Ian Hart, who played Professor Quirrell, voiced the Dark Lord, and a CGI rendition of Voldemort’s visage was molded into the back of Quirrell’s head.
In the second film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Christian Coulson played Voldemort, also known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, a Slytherin student in his fifth year at Hogwarts. Voldemort does not appear in the third film in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, so Fiennes takes up the character in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and he reprises it in all following films except Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
While Fiennes became the de facto Voldemort in the films, several actors played the character in flashbacks. In reality, Fiennes’ nephew, Hero Fiennes Tiffin (who you may recall from the After films), played a juvenile version of Tom Riddle in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth film in the series. In the same film, Frank Dillane replaced Coulson to play a teenage version of the character during his sixth year at Hogwarts.
While the HBO Harry Potter reboot cast has largely been announced—at least for season one—one major character’s casting has yet to be confirmed: Voldemort. However, that does not prevent people from speculating.
For months, there have been reports that Irish actor Cillian Murphy is in the running to portray the series’ primary adversary, and those theories were compounded in 2026 when Ralph Fiennes himself allegedly hinted in a red carpet interview that Murphy had joined the production. When asked who he would like to play Voldemort in the future program, Fiennes responded: “Well, I’m told they’re already filled, aren’t they?”
“I’ve already said, I think Cillian Murphy is very good,” Fiennes reiterated when asked again. “Really good. A really good pick. I believe they cast it, haven’t they? They haven’t? I’m not sure. “I thought they did.”
Teen Vogue contacted HBO for comment, but did not receive an instant response.
Murphy has responded to the rumors, denying his involvement with the show on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. When asked if he had participated in the show, he replied, “No, my kids show it to me occasionally, but I don’t know anything about it. I mean, it’s pretty difficult to follow whatever Ralph Fiennes does. The dude is a true acting legend. So, best of luck to whoever fills those shoes.
