Who will play Lord Voldemort in the new Harry Potter TV series? That seems to be a question many people are asking themselves as the highly divisive HBO reboot inches closer to fruition, with rumors and speculation taking over the internet and various names being thrown into the mix.
Ever since the HBO reboot was announced, discourse around who should be cast in the show has been hugely popular (and divisive). With filming already underway for a targeted 2027 release, many of the main roles for the show's first season have been cast and announced, but the series' main antagonist remains faceless.
Below, we have gathered everything you need to know about Voldemort in the new HBO Harry Potter series, from rumored actor choices to how the character could compare to its books and movies counterparts.
Who played Voldemort in the original Harry Potter movies?
If we want to get an idea of who will be playing Voldemort in the new Harry Potter series, it's worth looking back at who played the Dark Lord in the original Harry Potter film saga, and the answer is: quite a lot of people.
While most of us probably associate the character with English actor Ralph Fiennes, Fiennes was just the actor who played Voldemort the longest, not the only one. In fact, the first actor to ever step into Voldemort's shoes was Richard Bremmer in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. He appeared briefly as a cloaked figure in a Godric's Hollow flashback scene while Hagrid recounts to Harry how he got his infamous scar. Later in the film, Ian Hart, who played Professor Quirrell, lent his voice to the Dark Lord, with a CGI version of Voldemort's face molded onto the back of Quirrell's head.
In the second movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, actor Christian Coulson portrayed Voldemort, or Tom Marvolo Riddle, a still-Slytherin student during his fifth year at Hogwarts. Voldemort does not appear in the saga's third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Fiennes then takes on the role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, reprising the role in all subsequent films except Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
While Fiennes became the de facto Voldemort in the saga's films, other actors also portrayed the character in flashbacks. In fact, Fiennes's own nephew, Hero Fiennes Tiffin (you might recognize him from the After movies), played a child version of Tom Riddle in the saga's sixth movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In the same movie, actor Frank Dillane replaced Coulson to portray 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 1—there's still one big character whose casting has yet to be confirmed: Voldemort. However, that's not stopping people from speculating.
For months now, there have been rumors that Irish actor Cillian Murphy was in the running to play the main antagonist in the series, and those were only exacerbated in 2026 when Ralph Fiennes himself seemingly implied in a red carpet interview that Murphy had joined the project. When asked about who he would like to fill in his shoes as Voldemort for the upcoming show, Fiennes said: "Well, I’m told they’re already filled, aren’t they?"
“I’ve already said, I think Cillian Murphy is very good,” Fiennes doubled down when asked again. “Very good. Very good choice. I think they’ve cast it, haven’t they? They haven't? I don’t know. I thought they had."
Teen Vogue reached out to HBO for comment and did not immediately hear back.
Murphy himself, however, has spoken up about the speculation, denying his involvement in the show on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. When asked if he had joined the show, he said, “No, my kids show it to me occasionally, but no, I don’t know anything about that. I mean, also, it’s just really hard to follow anything Ralph Fiennes does. The man is an absolute acting legend. So, good luck to whoever is going to fill those shoes.”
Other names in the mix
HBO is rightfully keeping casting news on the DL, but speculation is still rampant even beyond Murphy. One other name people think could be in contention for the role is Succession actor Matthew Macfadyen.
The rumor seems to stem from the fact that the English actor actually voiced Voldemort in the new Harry Potter audiobooks by Pottermore Publishing and Audible. For reference, Arabella Stanton, who will play Hermione Granger in the reboot, also voiced the character for a few of the audiobooks in the production, leading some to assume Macfadyen could follow suit.
Another, far more unexpected rumor, as reported by Deadline, is that The Chronicles of Narnia alum Tilda Swinton is also a name fans are throwing in as a contender for the role of Voldemort. However, both seem to be mere fan speculation.
Voldemort in the books
The Harry Potter TV series from HBO is being touted as a more faithful adaptation of the books, so, of course, looking at the books to understand how the role of Voldemort could be cast is probably the most sensible route.
Voldemort is the main antagonist in the Harry Potter books, but, much like in the movies, he doesn't appear all that much at the beginning of the saga, other than in mentions and flashbacks. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Voldemort only appears as a non-corporeal entity on the back of Quirrell's head. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Voldemort appears only in flashbacks as Slytherin prefect Tom Marvolo Riddle, and the character is mentioned only in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
All that's to say, there are multiple ways to feature Voldemort in the new series without necessarily showing the actor who will play the character for as long as Fiennes did. Voldemort, as a corporeal entity, only returns in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and that's the first book in which we actually get a physical description of the character.
This post will be updated as news on Voldemort's casting for the HBO Harry Potter reboot series breaks.
