HBO Finally Has Its Ginny Weasley — and Just Cast Dobby and Tom Riddle Too
HBO has resolved its Ginny Weasley recast with Bonnie Hill, and revealed Lenny Rush as Dobby and Billy Barratt as Tom Riddle — three Chamber of Secrets castings at once.
Two months after we told you Ginny Weasley’s recast search was down to the wire, HBO has answered the question — and thrown in two more castings nobody was expecting this week.
Bonnie Hill has been cast as Ginny Weasley, closing out the urgent open casting call that opened back in July after Gracie Cochrane exited the role. In the same announcement, HBO revealed Lenny Rush as Dobby and Billy Barratt as Tom Riddle — all three cast specifically for Season 2, Chamber of Secrets.
Why three castings landed together
Chamber of Secrets leans harder on Ginny, Dobby, and Tom Riddle than any other book in the series gets to lean on its new characters — Dobby’s warnings open the whole plot, Ginny’s possession drives it, and Riddle’s diary is the villain underneath all of it. Announcing the trio together reads like HBO wanted the full core of Season 2’s mystery locked before pre-production got much further along. The show is currently in pre-production at Leavesden Studios, with filming expected this fall.
The casting notes worth knowing
- Billy Barratt is already a known quantity for young-actor-carries-heavy-material roles — he became the youngest-ever International Emmy winner for Best Performance by an Actor for the BBC’s Responsible Child, which bodes well for a character who has to be charming and unsettling in the same scene.
- Lenny Rush taking on Dobby is notable casting for a character built almost entirely on voice and physical performance rather than a face audiences already know — a sign the show is treating the house-elf as a real performance, not just a visual-effects showpiece.
- Bonnie Hill steps into a role that only grows from here — Ginny becomes one of the most important characters in the entire saga by Half-Blood Prince, so this recast was never just about filling a Season 2 credit.
What this closes and what it opens
For readers who followed the original recast scramble, this is the resolution: the July casting call worked, production didn’t lose meaningful time, and Season 2 now has its Ginny locked in alongside two brand-new characters the films never gave much room to breathe. For everyone else, it’s a reminder that a season-per-book adaptation means even “minor” film characters are about to get full arcs.
For the complete, continuously updated cast list — Harry, Hermione, Ron, the staff table, and now this trio — our living HBO series tracker has the full rundown.
While Season 2 comes together
If a new generation of castings has you thinking about your own Hogwarts fate, take the Sorting Hat quiz — and if you’re already planning ahead for the Christmas Day premiere, the gift guide is sorted by house so you’re not scrambling in December.
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