HBO Reportedly Builds Real-Life School for Child Actors Filming ‘Harry Potter’ Series Over Next Decade

Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, where HBO is filming the new “Harry Potter” TV series, is setting up a temporary school for the young actors. This way, the kids can keep up with their studies while working on the show over the next eight to ten years, the BBC reports. HBO announced on July 15 that production on the series has officially started.

According to the BBC, the local Three Rivers District Council has approved the use of several portable buildings as classrooms. These classrooms are designed to hold up to 600 students during busy times when many young actors are filming big crowd scenes. Most of the time, though, the school will serve about 150 students.

The school will be open on weekdays from 5:30 in the morning until 8:30 at night, so the kids can fit their lessons around late-night shoots, reshoots, and filming at different locations.

The planning papers didn’t mention “Harry Potter” by name but described the classrooms as for a “significant new TV series” that will be based at the studio for up to ten years. The BBC added that the school setup will stay in place for a maximum of ten years.

In January 2021, Warner Bros. started thinking about making a new Harry Potter TV series for HBO Max. In May 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery’s boss, David Zaslav, met with J.K. Rowling to talk about future projects in the wizarding world.

Then, on April 12, 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery officially announced a new live-action Harry Potter TV show at a press event for their streaming service, now called Max. This new series will reboot the story from the books, with each season covering one of the seven Harry Potter novels.

The plan is to make the show over ten years. J.K. Rowling will be an executive producer and said she is “looking forward to being part of this new adaptation which will allow for a degree of depth and detail only afforded by a long form television series.” The show was expected to come out in 2026.

Later, on June 25, 2024, the series was moved from Max to HBO. The next day, June 26, 2024, Francesca Gardiner was named the showrunner, Mark Mylod was announced as director and executive producer, and David Heyman, who produced the original Harry Potter movies, joined as an executive producer.

HBO held open casting calls and auditioned around 32,000 kids to find the actors for the series. Some of the young stars who will attend the on-set school include Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter, Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, Lox Pratt as Draco Malfoy, Alessia Leoni as Parvati Patil, Leo Earley as Seamus Finnigan, Rory Wilmot as Neville Longbottom, and Amos Kitson as Dudley Dursley.

The “Harry Potter” series is expected to premiere on HBO and HBO Max in 2027.

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