The Traitors Host Alan Cumming Rejected A Harry Potter Role For A Good Reason

Alan Cumming is a multi-talented star. Currently, he's the host of Peacock's hit series "The Traitors," and he's also known for projects like a one-man version of William Shakespeare's "MacBeth," the Emcee in "Cabaret" in both London's West End and Broadway in New York City, TV shows like "The Good Wife" and films like "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion" and "Josie and the Pussycats." Apparently, he was also (sort of) offered the role of Gilderoy Lockhart in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the second movie in the popular franchise.

Cumming spoke to The Guardian in 2021, before "The Traitors" even began, and when profiler Chris Harvey suggested that Cumming turned the project down, Cumming pushed back immediately. Apparently, he didn't just turn down the "Harry Potter" role, but was quite forceful about it.

"I didn't turn it down," he told Harvey. "I told them to [expletive] off! They wanted me and Rupert Everett to do a screen test, and they said they couldn't pay me more than a certain sum, they just didn't have any more money in the budget. And I had the same agent as Rupert, who of course they were going to pay more." If this is true — and there's no real reason for Cumming to lie here — that's pretty shady. Everett didn't end up playing the role either, though ... so what happened?

If there's one thing about Alan Cumming, it's that he doesn't mince words — which you can tell from this interview in The Guardian. "Blatantly lying, stupidly lying, as well," Cumming continued, talking about the "Harry Potter" casting fiasco. "Like, if you're going to lie, be clever about it. I said, tell them to [expletive] right off. And thought, well Rupert's going to get the part. They made him screen test, and I remember he brought his own wig. And then they [expletive] gave it to Kenneth Branagh, came out of the shadows." (Fans of the magical franchise also know Hugh Grant was approached for the role of the lying, thieving Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Gilderoy Lockhart, so clearly the movie had trouble casting this particular role.)

Based on Cumming's phenomenal career — despite not being in "Harry Potter" — and his activism as a celebrity, it's probably for the best that he didn't play Lockhart. On his 58th birthday in 2023, Cumming revealed on Instagram that he returned his OBE, or "Order of the British Empire," bestowed upon him by Queen Elizabeth II, saying that England's "toxicity of empire" and its treatment of the LGBTQ+ community inspired his decision.

It's also become sort of impossible to talk about "Harry Potter" without discussing Joanne "J.K." Rowling, who has made no secret of her anti-trans views in recent years and also donates to anti-trans causes in the U.K., leading to some of the franchise's stars to disavow her views. Cumming, who is passionate about queer rights, is probably fortunate that his name isn't tied to a creation of Rowling for his own personal peace.

In some ways — though this sounds silly at first — Alan Cumming's hardest acting job to date is on "The Traitors." "I feel like it's a huge acting job," Cumming told The Hollywood Reporter during a roundtable discussion in August 2024. "I think about it as a character. Obviously it's me — his name's Alan Cumming — but obviously it's not really me. I don't really sound like that. I don't dress like that. I don't have a castle. Alas, that's too bad."

Beyond that, though, Cumming — a proud queer man — thinks that the popularity of "The Traitors" is good for LGBTQ+ representation in troubled times. In March 2025, Cumming was quite blunt with Buzzfeed about his views, saying, "'The Traitors' is such a queer show. There's me at the center of it, being super queer with all my crazy outfits. Two of the winners this year are queer people, and that's so lovely. I really did push to have a better representation in the show, and that's certainly worked."

Cumming, for his part, remains hopeful about the possible impact of "The Traitors." "With all these draconian, horrific things, laws, and attitudes against the queer and trans community in America right now, I think it's a really positive thing to see so many queer people and, hopefully, trans people in a show that also celebrates dressing up, androgyny, femme-ness, and queerness," Cumming went on. "Hopefully we challenge people: If you like all that and you love this show, maybe you shouldn't vote for a party that is trying to demean and destroy those people's lives."