Why Harry Potter's Peter Pettigrew Looks So Familiar

Regardless of whatever high-flying, lucrative roles the Harry Potter series' actors might go on to, they'll always be remembered for their parts in the wizarding world. Emma Watson has been Belle, yet she will always be Hermione to those who held the lovable bookworm dear. Maggie Smith had an entire lifetime's worth of work under her belt before Sorcerer's Stone debuted, yet to so many, she is Professor McGonagall, now and always. 

Not every role is so sunny, however. Peter Pettigrew, for instance, is a literal and figurative rat of a character, a man responsible for Harry Potter's central trauma, condemned to the henchman's life forever. He is loathsome, sniveling, and weak, even when his actions have effects that ripple throughout the decades. And he is so because Timothy Spall, veteran British actor, played him so effectively.

Spall is an actor with a filmography that encompasses everything from the cornerstones of Western literature to the most modern-minded pieces around, studded with awards and accolades of every kind. He's a man capable of bringing you to tears as often as he makes you laugh, of portraying quiet heroism, bloviating rage, and low cunning alike. Here are some of his greatest roles beyond Peter Pettigrew. If you recognize them, enjoy the revisit. If you don't, you've got some excellent watching ahead of you.

Secrets & Lies follows a terrific and varied ensemble cast of British all-stars as they grapple with family ties, long-buried half-truths, and the reality of what it means to love someone against all odds. In the midst of it all, there is Timothy Spall playing Maurice Purley, a photographer with conflict brewing between him and both his wife and sister. Complicating his life further is his long-lost niece, given up for adoption decades ago and recently returned in an effort to understand her origins. 

The film garnered nigh-universal acclaim when it premiered as a sophisticated, tender-hearted look at the history and hope that holds a family together across everything from unexpected pregnancy to job loss and poverty. Spall's Maurice is a terrific example of these strengths: a man whose life is both in and out of his control, who laments his losses yet works hard — if not always successfully — to move forward.

A rollicking, ruthless portrayal of art and what fuels it, Spall plays the painter J. M. W. Turner in this critically-acclaimed biopic. Turner was, by all accounts, a bit of a madman. He consciously refused the trappings of fame, had himself tied to masts to better paint sea scenes, and never quite fit in within the Royal Academy of Art. But his work was utterly sublime, capturing the power and violence of nature as readily as its grace and tranquility. 

He was a complicated figure to the point of negativity — the movie sees him take his housekeeper vastly for granted, even when their relationship grows sexual — and Spall fills the role as no one else could. He has darkness within him, to be sure, but also tremendous beauty and a capacity for growth. Spall takes to the role as Turner himself took to painting: with a hunger and a passion too fierce and singular to be denied.

Another henchman enters the Spall filmography in this frothy Disney adventure. Giselle, a woodland princess from the magical land of Andalasia, finds herself trapped in our very own New York City when the wicked Queen Narissa pushes her into a dimension-spanning portal. Narissa sends forth Nathaniel, played by Spall as a helplessly lovesick minion, to keep an eye on Giselle and do her bidding in general. 

Spall gets to be quite a bit funnier here than as Peter Pettigrew or Beadle Bamford. He talks to Narissa through pots of boiling soup, antagonizes a chipmunk, and ultimately gets his redemption. That's right — he's a Timothy Spall henchman who chooses to leave the evil leader he's pledged himself to for the good of the heroes. Our last glimpse is of him promoting a self-help book about his experiences, a long and ardent line of autograph-seekers waiting to meet him. Here, Spall proves that he doesn't just play servile wretches well — he can make you root for them too.

Spall has made his mark on more than a few classics over his career. Sweeney Todd is a landmark musical brought to life by absolute masters of stage and screen. A Series of Unfortunate Events is well on its way to becoming a well-loved monument to children's literature. Harry Potter needs no introduction. And then there is Charles Dickens: a giant of literature, a challenge to thespians everywhere, and yet another luminary whose work has been interpreted by one Timothy Spall. 

In the 1998 TV serialization of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, Spall played Mr. Venus, a taxidermist in love with one Pleasant Riderhood. Considerably more colorful than many of Dickens' characters, Mr. Venus is enlivened by Spall's performance, and his gift for outlandish characters shines particularly here, pulling off character beats and lines that might have seemed false in a lesser actor's hands. As with Peter Pettigrew, he makes you believe in Venus as a character, rather than a collection of tropes and oddities as he sometimes seems on the page. Spall does what even Dickens himself could not: he makes Mr. Venus whole.

The Baudelaire children are menaced by more than a few people over the course of this film, but Spall's bumbling Mr. Poe is one of the strangest. Unlike Count Olaf — whose machinations include leaving the children parked in front of an oncoming train, killing interlopers with deadly vipers, and staging an entire play devised to trick a young orphan into a legal marriage for her inheritance — Poe doesn't ever intend to cause harm. As the orphaned trio's banker, he manages the considerable fortune they stand to inherit and seeks to place them in the healthiest possible environment. He means well, truly he does. He's just acutely oblivious. 

The children (and the audience) are always aware of the cruelty that surrounds them, of Count Olaf's many disguises, and the lengths to which people will go for large sums of cash. Mr. Poe, however, isn't. In that sense, he is the ultimate adult to the young audience this movie was created for: a guardian with mysterious and important powers who somehow manages to miss all the things children do not. He's a good man, but this is a story for children, and they know better than anyone how little the good intentions of adults can amount to.