JK Rowling praises Potter play casting

Dumezweni was born in Swaziland to South African parents who had fled apartheid, and moved with her mother and sister to Suffolk when she was 7.

However, some Twitter users pointed out lines from “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”, in which the character’s “white face was sticking out from behind a tree”. White skin was never specified.

Rowling, who devised the production with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany, was quick to respond to an outpouring of largely positive reaction from fans after the casting announcement was made. She even pinned a Tweet of black Hermione drawings to the top of her account’s feed.

The author insists she “never specified” the ethnicity of the popular witch when writing her series of books, so can’t understand why some people are outraged that Noma Domezweni will take on the role in the spin-off play. Not surprisingly, some fans were in an uproar about the casting, but series creator J.K. Rowling recently offered up her thoughts on Granger and Dumezweni.

Rowling, for her part, continued to share jokes about the many ways readers have imagined the Potter characters over the years. Then, in February, a Buzzfeed post on fan art depicted Hermione as black.

“Of course Hermione Granger’s black”, Stephen Bush wrote in an opinion piece for the English magazine New Statesman.

Paul Thornley is set to play Ron Weasley, and is best known for his role as Dodge in the stage and film versions of “London Road”.

But let’s not get carried away, says Kayleigh Anne in The Independent.

But official description aside, Rowling and the original Potter actors make a compelling point that Hermione, and the entire world of Harry Potter, is all about perception and imagination. “But it’s OK”, she adds, acknowledging Rowling for “helping to add diversity to the franchise”.