Nicholas Hoult is going to Hogwarts, just not as the boy wizard he once auditioned to play. HBO confirmed Tuesday that the 36-year-old British actor, who played Lex Luthor in DC's Superman and Beast across multiple X-Men films, has been cast as Gilderoy Lockhart in Season 2 of its Harry Potter series, which adapts Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Kenneth Branagh played the role in the 2002 film.
Lockhart is the pompously charming Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who assigns his own autobiography to students as classroom reading and turns out to be spectacularly unqualified for the job.
The casting is, as HBO's Instagram announcement put it with perfect precision, "Magical me, indeed."
The full-circle element: as a child, Hoult auditioned multiple times for the role of Harry Potter for the original film adaptations.
He got several callbacks, met director Chris Columbus, wore fake glasses for the audition and did not get the part, which went to Daniel Radcliffe. He is now in the HBO series instead, as a much more entertaining character.
Season 1, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, premieres on HBO and Max on December 25, 2026. Season 2 begins filming this fall.
The main cast includes Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, Arabella Stanton as Hermione, Alastair Stout as Ron, John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Snape and Nick Frost as Hagrid.