HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Just Cast Its Moaning Myrtle, and Here’s Who’s Playing Her
Casting decisions for beloved side characters tend to generate their own wave of scrutiny, especially for roles that left a distinct impression on fans despite limited screen time in the original films. Few Hogwarts characters fit that description quite as well as the perpetually gloomy ghost haunting one of the castle’s bathrooms.
HBO’s ongoing ‘Harry Potter‘ series has been steadily filling out its Season 2 ensemble as production moves forward on the show’s adaptation of ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.’ The season is currently filming back-to-back with Season 1 under the working title “Dark Train,” following the show’s greenlight back in May and a writers’ room that had already been active since the previous November.
The latest addition to that growing cast is Molly Hewitt-Richards, who has been cast as Moaning Myrtle for the upcoming season. The role carries some built-in significance for longtime fans, given how memorably the character was portrayed in the original film adaptation, where she became a fixture of one of Hogwarts’ more unusual mysteries.
Moaning Myrtle plays a key role in the atmosphere and plotting of the Chamber of Secrets storyline, with her haunted bathroom serving as an important location tied to the mystery of the Heir of Slytherin. The character’s blend of teenage melodrama and ghostly menace has made her one of the more quotable and recognizable figures from the books, even though her screen time remains relatively limited compared to the story’s central trio.
Hewitt-Richards steps into a role previously defined by actress Shirley Henderson, who famously played the fourteen-year-old ghost in the original films while actually in her thirties at the time. Henderson has spoken about how a casting director specifically advised her not to reveal her real age during the audition process, and how the character’s ghostly, misty presentation ultimately helped her get away with playing a role decades younger than herself.
That history adds an interesting layer to how HBO’s version might approach the character this time around, particularly given the show’s stated commitment to a faithful, episodic adaptation of Rowling’s source material. Unlike the two-hour feature film format of the original movies, Season 2’s television structure gives the show considerably more room to build out the atmospheric dread and school gossip that surrounds Myrtle’s storyline in the books.
Hewitt-Richards joins a Season 2 cast that’s been expanding steadily in recent months, including Rafe Spall as Arthur Weasley, Billy Barratt as a young Tom Riddle, and Lenny Rush as the house-elf Dobby. The broader ensemble also includes returning stars Dominic McLaughlin, Alastair Stout, and Arabella Stanton as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, alongside a wave of newer additions like Rory Wilmot as Neville Longbottom and Sienna Moosah as Lavender Brown.
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While HBO has not yet confirmed an exact premiere date for Season 2, industry expectations currently point toward a potential 2027 release window. With the show filming its first two seasons simultaneously, fans may not have to wait especially long after Season 1’s debut before getting a proper look at how this new adaptation handles the Chamber of Secrets storyline, ghostly bathroom mystery and all.
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