As Dudley Dursley, Harry Melling became known in the Harry Potter films. After a period of silence around the actor, he made a comeback through Netflix.
In five Harry Potter movies, Harry Melling played the pampered cousin of the main character: Dudley Dursley, who sometimes made Harry’s life even harder than it already was.
Due to the enormous popularity of the wizarding franchise, a vast audience immediately associated the actor with his childhood role as soon as they saw him.
However, through Netflix, Harry Melling made a fresh start and was able to build his own career away from the Harry Potter franchise.
Here you see a trailer for Harry Melling’s latest film project:
From Harry Potter to Netflix Success
After Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, it was initially quiet around the actor. Apart from minor supporting roles in series like Just William or Garrow’s Law, hardly anything was seen of Harry Melling.
In 2016, he returned to the big screen with a role in The Lost City of Z and was back in the acting business.
In 2018, Harry Melling then started his big Netflix career with The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, where he portrayed a performer without arms and legs. This allowed him to shift his image from a spoiled brat to an interesting character actor, as the subsequent roles showed.
Several Netflix projects followed with The Old Guard (2020), The Devil All the Time (2020), and The Queen’s Gambit (2020), in which he was able to play interesting and complex characters and showcase his talent.
Most recently, Harry Melling played a main character with Edgar Allan Poe in the Netflix film The Remarkable Case of Mr Poe (2022) (you see the trailer above).
You can read more about Harry Melling in The Remarkable Case of Mr Poe and the audience’s reactions on Twitter here with our colleagues from Filmstarts.
Already at the end of the Harry Potter series, Harry Melling’s appearance changed due to significant weight loss.
As he told people.com, it wasn’t a conscious decision, but rather an “unconscious process” that led him to lose so much weight.
However, he is glad about the change because it meant he was recognized less. “[…] I also felt that I had the opportunity to make a fresh start, which I found helpful.“
Another well-known star, however, had to give up his role in a wizard film, which meant that a scene with him could no longer be used for the final film:
16 million dollars cost a single scene with Johnny Depp: It doesn’t even appear in the film
