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It has been announced that Noma Dumezweni, a person of color, will play Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Noma Dumezweni

Is there any indication of JK Rowling's involvement in this casting? And what does this affect in terms of Hermione's ethnicity?

Mithical
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ibid
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    Possible duplicate of What is Hermione Granger's ethnicity? - a VERY controversial question with loads of upvotes and loads of downvotes! – Rand al'Thor Dec 21 '15 at 01:56
  • @randal'thor I was unaware of how much the issue has been discussed. I have modified my question to refer exclusively to the Cursed Child casting, which I don't believe was involved in the other discussion. – ibid Dec 21 '15 at 02:04
  • Fair enough (I was unaware of the Cursed Child casting); VTC retracted and answer posted! – Rand al'Thor Dec 21 '15 at 02:17
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    To answer the second part of the question, the effect on Hermione's ethnicity is that she is black in (this production of) Cursed Child and she is white in the movies. That's all you can say. – DJClayworth Jan 05 '16 at 15:49

3 Answers3

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Yes.

From here:

The play's producer Sonia Friedman told The Daily Mail that J.K. Rowling and playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany Callender collaborated on casting. "We were all involved with all the key casting decisions," Friedman said.

Rand al'Thor
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  • Does this show JK Rowling's view on the matter? Or was she just approaching this as an adaptation (like the movies, where it doesn't matter if they change crucial stuff)? – ibid Dec 21 '15 at 02:22
  • @ibid The answers to the other question I linked to (especially this one) seem to show pretty conclusively that JKR originally imagined Hermione as white. – Rand al'Thor Dec 21 '15 at 02:24
  • Is this an indication that she changed her mind? – ibid Dec 21 '15 at 02:25
  • @ibid It's early days. This news is still very fresh, and I don't think JKR has commented publicly on it yet. – Rand al'Thor Dec 21 '15 at 02:27
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    Well, if this was someone of integrity like Heinlein or Ursula Le Guin, I'd say the author was simply sneaky and not revealing all their cards. Being who this author is IRL, most likely it's simply deciding politics takes priority over art (J.J. Abrams sends his regards, along with the codes to disable shields to Starkiller base). – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 21 '15 at 02:54
  • @DVK If you find something proving without a doubt that Hermione is canonically white in the books, add it as an answer to Richard's question and let us know. Until then, lets not assume to know anything about JK Rowling's thought process regarding the characters and world that she has created. – Dr R Dizzle Dec 21 '15 at 14:30
  • @DrRDizzle - the fact that she didn't object to WB casting seems to be a fairly strong clue, considering the context of this question. And the existing answers to that question indicate she was definitely NOT thinking of making her non-white at the time, all present protestations aside. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 21 '15 at 14:34
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    @DVK No, that just indicates that Hermione's skin colour isn't something she cares about, which this latest casting, the books and her own words on the matter all support. – Dr R Dizzle Dec 21 '15 at 14:35
  • @DrRDizzle - that last interpretation is in full agreement with what I said earlier. She didn't care back then so she went with "will make me more money" white version. Now, she's trying to make a political statement because she can, and no longer needs to care about $$$ pressure from WB. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 21 '15 at 14:39
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    @DVK Again, "lets not assume to know anything about JK Rowling's thought process regarding the characters and world that she has created". Emma Watson was great as Hermione, and I'm sure Noma Dumezweni will be too. – Dr R Dizzle Dec 21 '15 at 14:41
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    @DrRDizzle - Pretty much all actors are equally adequate given good material, IMO. It may matter in deeply complex and layered character like Snape, but pretty much any female actress can be good as Hermione - that character's quaities are about screenplay (dialog and settings) and not emoting via acting, for most part (see Anakin Skywalker for reverse situation, or better yet Padme. Nobody ever accused Natalie Portman of being a poor actress). – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 21 '15 at 14:44
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    @DrRDizzle - re: Richard's question, I kinda ignored it before for most part; but upone rereading now, it already has 4 extremely convincing answers: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/105472, http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/105475, http://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/105468. Plus Richard's own answer. All your and Alex's answers provide are latter-day JKR retcons (which are WoG, but don't change the fact that it's as much of a retcon as Han shooting last) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 22 '15 at 02:30
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    Can't wait for the first male to play Hermione. – Belegorn Jan 10 '16 at 20:08
  • @DVK You and your Star Wars similes :-) – Rand al'Thor Jan 10 '16 at 20:14
  • @randal'thor - I'm open to more obvious suggestions of roles where good actors ended up borking the part due to poor dialogue, which would be just as clear to most sff affictionados :) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Jan 10 '16 at 20:21
  • @DVK Isn't mentioning SW on a HP thread some kind of sacrilege? (Also, was "affictionados" a typo or an awesome portmanteau? Either way, typo-ing the first "a" to an "s" would make it even more awesome!) – Rand al'Thor Jan 10 '16 at 20:42
  • @randal'thor - a lack of ability to spell :) And no, I don't take SFF seriously enough to worry if someone will consider it sacrilege. As Gandalf said, "Let go, Harry.... Harry, trust me". – DVK-on-Ahch-To Jan 10 '16 at 20:55
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According to her twitter page, she was involved in the casting of the play, but the Director had final refusal.

John Green: speaking of which, great job on the casting of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child!

JKR: Thanks! John (director) cast my three first choices so I'm very happy! His decision, though, because Writers. Don't. Do. Casting.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 21, 2015
Valorum
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8

Straight from the horse's mouth (a tweet direct from JK Rowling):

Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione

Robert
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    While this confirms her ethnicity, this quote does not answer the question of whether or not JKR was involved in the casting. – phantom42 Dec 21 '15 at 14:32
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    Can't JKR just say that her characters don't have a specific "canon" race? After all, the list of attributes of a perfect stage actress for Hermione needn't be encumbered by race checkboxes. Further, does the name "black Hermione" vs "Hermione" indicate that "Hermione" isn't black? Otherwise the "black Hermione" would be a bit of silly thing to say. Unless of course Hermione is a bit like Michael Jackson is some way. Heeeeeey Pottermore. – Gorchestopher H Dec 21 '15 at 15:03
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    This doesn't seem to answer the question asked. – Valorum Jan 05 '16 at 16:36