It sounds like Harry Melling sort of got the short end of the stick when it comes to his filming experience on all the Harry Potter movies, his character being a Muggle and all. The British actor, who is now 33, of course, played the spoiled cousin to Harry Potter, Dudley Dursley, who would often have scenes with Daniel Radcliffe at the top of the J.K. Rowling adaptations before the young wizard escaped off to Hogwarts. As Melling recently pointed out, his time in the blockbuster films was rather isolating in contrast to the rest of the cast.
As Melling stars alongside Christian Bale as Edgar Allan Poe in the new Netflix release, The Pale Blue Eye, the actor reflected on his time as Dudley in the Wizarding World franchise. Here’s what he had to say:
My experience was unique in terms of I wasn’t in it throughout the entire shoot. The earthly sequences would very much be an isolated filming block. So, I dipped in, and then I went back to school and normal life, which I kind of loved.
Much of the young Harry Potter cast like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Tom Felton basically spent their childhood on the Hogwarts set, but Harry Melling didn’t share that experience. As Melling told Entertainment Weekly, his time on the movies was “unique” because he’d only be part of scenes in the Muggle world before resuming a normal life outside the franchise.
As it’s been over two decades since the first Harry Potter movies were released, much of the cast has since opened up about their struggles with transitioning from the fame of the series to adulthood. For example, Watson has called her early life “sheltered,” whilst Felton realized he “wasn’t good at acting,” and he had to work hard for his subsequent roles. However, Melling says he doesn’t get recognized on the street for his Harry Potter role and is totally good with that.
Melling also explained he much prefers concentrating on his work rather than having widespread fame, which he thinks “feels like noise.” Over the years, the actor has shown up in movies like The Lost City of Z, the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Old Guard, was among The Queen’s Gambit cast and 2021’s The Tragedy of Macbeth with Denzel Washington.
The Pale Blue Eye is an adaptation of Louis Bayard’s mystery novel of the same name. The movie follows a veteran detective Augustus Landor, whom Christian Bale plays, as he investigates a series of murders with the aid of Harry Melling’s Edgar Allan Poe. The Pale Blue Eye, which has received positive reception from critics and audiences thus far, can be streamed now with a Netflix subscription.