The Game of Thrones alum steps into the role after Nicholas Hoult’s exit, reuniting with a character he already voiced for Audible.

Kit Harington is heading back to Westeros-adjacent fantasy territory, this time at Hogwarts. HBO has confirmed the actor will play Gilderoy Lockhart, the vainglorious Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, in Season 2 of its Harry Potter series.

Harington steps into the role after Nicholas Hoult, originally cast as Lockhart, departed the production over scheduling conflicts. According to Deadline, HBO tried to work around two other commitments on Hoult’s calendar, but a shift in the Lockhart shooting schedule within Season 2’s production made that impossible, and the Superman star was released from the part. HBO then approached Harington, who was both available and eager to take on the role.

A Role He Already Knows

Although this counts as a recast, it isn’t entirely new territory for Harington. He previously voiced Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter: The Full-Cast Audio Editions, the star-studded Audible releases that came out late last year. In a featurette for that project, Harington described having grown up alongside the books, having been roughly Harry’s age when Philosopher’s Stone was first published. Of the character he’s now playing on screen, he said: “I think there’s a little bit of Gilderoy Lockhart in all of us.“

Lockhart, a central figure in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, is a self-obsessed celebrity wizard, a five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award, who claims a long list of heroic exploits against dark creatures in his bestselling books. Dumbledore recruits him to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, with predictably chaotic results. The character was previously brought to the big screen by Kenneth Branagh in the 2002 film adaptation.

Source: Deadline