The Star Wars Actor That Harry Potter Fans Want To Play A Young Snape
Even though Harry Potter fans seem to think that author J.K. Rowling's tweets make her the second coming of Voldemort, the fanbase wants more Harry Potter. They await the next Fantastic Beasts movie without Johnny Depp. Moreover, gamers felt as though they bumped into a Dementor when they heard Hogwarts Legacy was delayed until 2022. Audiences clearly want to explore the wizarding world of Harry Potter outside the life of the titular protagonist, especially if that means focusing on fan-favorite characters, such as Severus Snape.
While Fantastic Beasts and Hogwarts Legacy are demi-prequels that explore life before the Potters and Voldemort entered the scene, many fans want an actual prequel that explores Snape's life. Audiences would love to see him progress from a Hogwarts student to a Death Eater, then to a double agent professor without resorting to flashbacks, but that would require finding the proper actor to portray Snape. While nobody could ever replace Alan Rickman, Harry Potter fans have chugged concentration potions and brainstormed, and they think they've discovered the perfect actor to step into young Snape's shoes. And in a crossing-the-streams moment, it turns out he's already famous within the Star Wars fanbase.
Adam Driver could apparate onto the screen as young Snape
Regardless of how J.K. Rowling envisioned Severus Snape, that vision has been replaced by Alan Rickman's face, voice and embodiment of the character. Ergo, many fans on Reddit agree — the post was upvoted nearly 26,000 times — the best person to play young Snape would look like a young Rickman, and one man fits the bill: Adam Driver. While Driver's first breakout role was Kylo Ren in the new Star Wars trilogy, many Harry Potter fans agree that he looks close enough to Rickman to feasibly be cast as a young Snape. Moreover, Driver is a talented actor with enough range to portray a man torn in two diametrically opposed moral directions. He has won numerous awards, mostly for Marriage Story, so he certainly would be up to the task.
However, with the title of "young Snape" comes the obvious question of whether Driver is too old for the role. Snape was supposed to be 38 when he died, and Driver is now 37. How could he possibly portray a young version of Snape? Several commenters have pointed out that the Harry Potter movies play fast and loose with character ages. For example, Alan Rickman was 55 when he played Snape. You don't have to be a math wizard to figure out that since Driver looks like a young Rickman, he could play a young Severus Snape.