This Is How J.K. Rowling Wanted The Harry Potter Cast To Look
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published in 1997, and the first installment of the adventures of our beloved wizard hero was quickly followed by several sequels. The film version of the book was released in 2001, and a pop culture phenomenon was truly born.
There has been a lot of speculation about the film's cast and the characters as they are described in the book. For every character who looks exactly as millions of fans imagined, there are characters who feel a little off. Nearly everyone can agree that Daniel Radcliffe's casting as Harry Potter is nearly perfect. In the first book, author J.K. Rowling writes, "Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape... The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning."
Interestingly enough, Radcliffe almost didn't get the part. Casting director Janet Hirshenson revealed to HuffPost that another young boy was in the running. "We went back and looked at Daniel again. The other kid was terrific and very vulnerable and very Harry-looking, but besides that, Harry was going to become a very powerful kid, too. And Daniel had both sides. He was very vulnerable, but the other kid ― it was like, he [was] not going to have the balls that Daniel has, to put it that way."
Emma Watson was immediately perfect for the role of Hermione Granger
Daniel Radcliffe definitely brought a lot to the table as Harry, though it's worth noting he has blue eyes (and they remain blue in all the films). But what about the other characters?
As explained by Screen Rant, J.K. Rowling reportedly had quite a lot of input about who was cast, and she had already mentally cast Robbie Coltrane, Dame Maggie Smith, and Alan Rickman as Hagrid, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape. But Hirshenson explains that casting Harry, Ron, and Hermione was up to the team in charge. Emma Watson turned out to be particularly perfect for the role of Hermione Granger. "For the Hermiones, as soon as Emma came on, there were six of us in the screening room. We just gasped. It was like, 'Oh my God.' Like, 'Whoaaa!' She took up the screen" (via HuffPost).
A look at the actual text reveals that Emma and Hermione began to diverge after the second or third film. In the books, Hermione is described as having "a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth" and some believe Emma Watson is much more attractive than Hermione was meant to be.