The (Adorable) Threat That Finally Pushed Harry Potter's Richard Harris To Play Dumbledore
Both the 2001 film "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and the 2002 sequel "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" starred the legendary Richard Harris as Professor Albus Dumbledore, the elderly wizard principal of a secret boarding school for child wizards and witches. The school, called Hogwarts, was a vast and mysterious place, full of secret passages, living paintings, shifting staircases, and hidden rooms that contain ineffable magical secrets. The two films, both directed by Chris Columbus, are the only two in the series to possess a sense of glittering wonderment. As the title character (played by Daniel Radcliffe) explored the world of wizards and witches, he was constantly confronting unusual and astonishing things that left him speechless.
Overseeing Harry's wonderment was Dumbledore, depicted in the first two movies as kind, soft-spoken, and grandfatherly. He understood that dangers lurked around every corner, but bothered to understand the inner lives of the children around him and offer them words of encouragement, should they be needed. Harris is imminently appealing in the role. Sadly, Harris passed away in October 2002 at the age of 72. Michael Gambon took over the role for six additional movies, and then, later, Jude Law played Dumbledore in two more.
Harris, however, set the standard, and his version of the character will remain the definitive one. And to think, he nearly didn't play Dumbledore. Indeed, Harris nearly didn't play Dumbledore three times; he repeatedly turned Dumbledore down, even as the studio kept calling back to increase his salary. In a 2001 interview with Zap2it (via the Guardian), Harris recalled his many refusals, explaining very carefully how he was definitely not interested.
It wasn't until he was forwardly threatened by a 10-year-old girl that Harris changed his mind.
I'll never speak to you again
Even prior to the making of the ultra-successful Harry Potter movies, the Harry Potter novels, written by an author, were already a massive phenomenon. Kids the world over became obsessed with the adventures of the titular boy wizard and the kooky school he attended. By 2000, when casting was likely happening for the "Sorcerer's Stone" movie, the fourth book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was hitting shelves. It was a massive deal.
Richard Harris knew when he received a call from his agent about playing Professor Dumbledore that he would be on the hook for all the sequels as well. He was in his 70s and had lived a long and textured life (listen to any one of his anecdotes about his life on stage — not to mention his constant drinking with Peter O'Toole — and you'll get a taste of how epically Rabelaisian his life was). He wasn't interested in starting a franchise at that point in his career. He said:
"All I knew is that they kept offering me the part and raising the salary every time they called. I kept turning it down. [...] Anyone involved has to agree to be in the sequels, all of them, and that's not how I wanted to spend the last years of my life, so I said no over and over again."
But Harris' granddaughter, Ella — maybe 10 at the time — had other ideas. Clearly a Harry Potter fan, Ella posed an ultimatum:
"She said, 'Papa, I hear you're not going to be in the Harry Potter movie,' and she said, 'If you don't play Dumbledore then I will never speak to you again,'"
Well, that decided it. He immediately agreed to play Dumbledore forthwith.