Ever since the new trio of young leads was announced back in May, the cast list has only gotten bigger. Not just more child actors, but plenty of adults too, and they’re… well, different. For one thing, they’re all hot. The Dursleys look like they just stepped off a runway, Snape could be a model on the cover of Men’s Health, and McGonagall no longer resembles the stern professor who had Hogwarts students quaking in their boots, but rather every schoolboy’s first crush.
Of course, these are actors, and styling can do wonders. Bel Powley and Daniel Rigby may look more like Vogue cover stars in their headshots, but one behind-the-scenes photo revealed that, with the right wardrobe and hair, they make a surprisingly convincing (and aggressively ’90s) Vernon and Petunia. Still, not all transformations have gone over smoothly. A recent photo of Molly Weasley at King’s Cross — lean, pretty, and decidedly un-matronly — has sparked backlash. Fans argue she looks nothing like her book description, and worry this signals a glossy, “yassified” version of the story rather than the “truer” adaptation HBO promised.
Hollywood’s obsession with beauty standards isn’t new, but it does feel more suffocating lately with the lack of diversity. I don’t just mean diversity in terms of race or ethnicity, I mean the lack of variety in body types and appearances. Every male actor has to be gym-ready, just in case a superhero gig comes along, and every woman seems pressured to shrink down to the same narrow standard of thinness. Then we’re asked to suspend disbelief as these glamorous, sculpted people play starving castaways, exhausted detectives, or broke college students. That's fine for a summer blockbuster, maybe, but when you’re adapting books with characters described in loving, unglamorous detail, it feels like something’s been lost in translation.
Other fans argue that the backlash itself misses the point. Why can’t Molly Weasley get dolled up to pick up her kids at King’s Cross? Can’t a beautiful woman also be warm, soft, and loving? Harry never once described her as unattractive in the books; he was a teenage boy with bigger problems than cataloguing his best friend’s mom’s looks. And any unflattering commentary about Molly’s appearance usually came from the Malfoys, who are about as reliable as a broken Remembrall.
And the Dursleys? Sure, Vernon was described as very large in the books, but that’s just one characterization. More importantly, they were obsessed with presenting themselves as the perfect, respectable family to the outside world with a manicured lawn, starched collars, and all. Rowling leaned into a kind of Roald Dahl–esque caricature in the early books, where adults were painted in broad, sometimes grotesque strokes to emphasize how oppressive or ridiculous they were from a child’s perspective. But once you strip that back a little for live action, it’s not impossible to imagine a polished, even attractive Petunia and Vernon still exuding the same level of snobbery and nastiness.
At the end of the day, these are just early glimpses into a massive production. Hair, makeup, and costuming can seriously transform the most polished of actors into the quirky characters we know and love. It remains to be seen whether HBO's reboot leans into a more airbrushed look overall, or if they'll manage to capture the messy warmth of the Wizarding World. The movies have a place in our heart, after all, not because all of the actors were perfect visual copies of the novels, but because the world they created felt authentic and lived-in. Maybe we can forgive getting a buff Snape and a Vernon with a jawline if they can bring the heart, humor, and tinge of darkness from the books.
