Beloved Actress, 66, Makes Surprising Remark About Her Role in ‘Harry Potter’ originally appeared on Parade.
Emma Thompson isn’t impressed by her role as Professor Sybil Trelawney in Harry Potter. Though fans loved the actress in the role, Thompson, 66, recently admitted that she doesn’t hold that performance very high on the scale of things she’s done in her career.
“It’s not really an important part of my creative endeavors. I’m really sorry. I don’t even be rude to those of you who like ‘Harry Potter,’ but you know, I came in, did a bit with glasses and a lot of hair, and then left having been quite well paid,” Thompson said at the Locarno Film Festival, according to Deadline.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that Thompson has spoken about her role in Harry Potter. In fact, in 2008, she told MovieWeb that she wouldn’t be returning to the franchise because of her role in Nanny McPhee. Moreover, she stated that the Nanny McPhee filmes were ones that she “really” cared about.
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“The Harry Potters are great big franchises that are something I’m not emotionally attached to or necessarily particularly creatively attached to. That’s more like doing a turn, whereas the Nanny McPhees are something I’ve written. The art is in those films, they’re very handmade, they’re something that’s very close to me. Those are the ones I really care about,” Thompson said at the time.
Thompson brought Professor Trelawney to life in Prisoner of Azkaban and made additional (though brief) appearances in Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows Part II. However, her role was fairly small in the films, relatively speaking, and she didn’t form the attachment that other actors did, perhaps due to the fact that she was only on set for a short amount of time.
Beloved Actress, 66, Makes Surprising Remark About Her Role in ‘Harry Potter’ first appeared on Parade on Aug 9, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 9, 2025, where it first appeared.
