This ‘How To Get Away With Murder’ Star Was Stunned By His ‘Harry Potter’ Character’s Original Name

Alfred Enoch is currently burning up the small screen on ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder as Wes Gibbins, but Harry Potter fans knew him first as Dean Thomas. While I’m still not comfortable watching adult Enoch do adult things on HTGAWM every week, he was a child actor who was lucky enough to be able to make the transition into adult roles. Earlier this year, he spoke about diversity in acting roles and touched on the controversy over casting a black actor to play Hermione in the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play.

While some may want to distance themselves from the wizarding world, Enoch seems happy enough to talk about it when asked. Not too long ago, Harry Potter author and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them screenwriter J.K. Rowling was asked about an unknown character named Gary who appeared in one of her old illustrations. Pictured alongside Neville, Ron, Harry, Hermione, was…Gary. Turns out, that’s the name she had originally given Dean Thomas.

There were quite a few other name changes as well (Malfoy had a particularly unfortunate name to start) but while guesting on Entertainment Weekly’s Binge podcast, the hosts asked if he’d ever heard this particular bit of Potter trivia. He hadn’t.

“It was going to be what? Gary?” Enoch said. “Wow, that is nuts…Can you imagine if like, it wasn’t going to be Harry Potter; it was going to be Brian? Great name, but difficult to process at this late state of the game.”

But he wasn’t done being shocked. “Wow, Gary? No, I can’t work with Gary. That’s such a trip in my head,” he said. “There we go, obviously again [Rowling] made the right choice. I respect the hell out of that. That’s great.”

It’s ok, Alfred, I’m still not over it either.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

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