John Lithgow is close to finalizing a deal to play Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series

A beloved actor is set to play a beloved Harry Potter character. Six-time Emmy winner John Lithgow (photo) is in final negotiations to play Professor Albus Dumbledore (Dumbledore in the Dutch translation of the books and films) in HBO's controversial series adaptation of the wildly popular fantasy books, sources say.



HBO declined to comment. "We understand that such a large-scale series will generate a lot of rumors and speculation," the network said in a statement. “As we work our way through pre-production, we will only confirm details once we finalize the deals.”

The Harry Potter series, which will span ten years, comes from writer/showrunner Francesca Gardiner and director/executive producer Mark Mylod. Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, at the time of the original announcement, called the series a "faithful adaptation" of J. K. Rowling's novels that will "dive deep into each of the iconic books."

The powerful wizard Dumbledore is the headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts (Hogwarts, ed.) and the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, which aims to fight the Dark wizard Lord Voldemort.

Dumbledore was played by the late Richard Harris and Michael Gambon in the Harry Potter films. Jude Law played a younger version of the character in the Fantastic Beasts prequel films.

Although they are all British or Irish and Lithgow is American, he has played British characters. He won the most recent of his six Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in The Crown and played Roald Dahl on stage in London.

The Harry Potter television series, which will be filmed at Warner Bros Studios Leavesden where the films were shot, is scheduled to debut on HBO in late 2026 or early 2027.

Lithgow is on track to become the first actor for a project whose casting has attracted enormous interest. The rumor mill has been running at full speed for months with speculation about who would play the most iconic characters from the books.

Rumors ranged from Paapa Essiedu for Potions Master Snape and Sharon Horgan and Lesley Manville for Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall to Brett Goldstein for Hogwarts Gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid and even Oscar winner Cillian Murphy for Lord Voldemort, with Ralph Fiennes, who played the role in the films, backing the idea.

In addition, some 32,000 children sent audition tapes for the leading roles of Harry, Hermione and Ron, and the selection is progressing.

Lithgow, a two-time Oscar nominee, co-stars in current Oscar contender Conclave. He's also the lead in the indie film Jimpa, which just premiered at Sundance, and stars opposite Geoffrey Rush in the upcoming The Rule of Jenny Pen.

On television, Lithgow was recently a series regular on FX's The Old Man and reprized his Emmy-winning role of Trinity in Showtime's Dexter: New Blood. He's also attached to a potential series about the Trinity Killer, which is now in the works.