Harry Potter HBO Series: First Look At Luke Thallon As Professor Quirrell

Another trailer for HBO's Harry Potter series — and its inaugural season, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" — is here, and in addition to that, we also got our first look at Luke Thallon as Professor Quirinus Quirrell on the show.

To be clear, Thallon's take on Quirrell, the first Defense Against the Dark Arts professor we meet at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, doesn't appear in the trailer itself. However, press photos from HBO have revealed Thallon in Quirrell's signature turban.

This is just a small part of the enormous, seemingly endless rollout of new glimpses of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," which is being released a mere 15 years after the Harry Potter film franchise (which is still pretty good, by the way) wrapped up and puts an enormous responsibility on the shoulders of the adult actors. What do I mean by that? Thallon is sort of off the hook here (Quirrell is a minor character in this property, all things considered, and I'll explain), but people like John Lithgow and Paapa Essiedu are stepping into shoes filled by luminaries like Richard Harris, Michael Gambon, and Alan Rickman, who originated the roles of Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape in the films. (Harris played Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore until his death in 2002, at which point Gambon took over.)

This all feels ... fraught, and, if I'm being honest, sort of weird. Not only has the entire Harry Potter franchise been plagued by creator Joanne "J.K." Rowling's intense bigotry towards the transgender community (and her financial commitments to hurting said community), but this TV reboot is also sort of answering a question that nobody asked. In any case, it's happening, so let's talk a bit more about Quirrell himself and his importance in this forthcoming season.

First things first. We're not going to learn this until much later in HBO's Harry Potter series, but the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts is cursed, and each person who fills it only lasts a single year. (Frankly, horrifying things also happen to every last one of them.) In the book version of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (the movie omits this reveal), Dumbledore tells Harry that when the Dark Lord Voldemort, originally named Tom Riddle, graduated from Hogwarts years prior, he hoped to become the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Dumbledore rejected him, correctly believing that Voldemort's interest in the so-called "Dark Arts" of wizardry isn't entirely innocent or based in academia. On his way out, Voldemort casually curses the entire job, and from that point on, nobody lasts more than one year. (Okay, diva!)

Enter Quirinus Quirrell, a squirrelly guy played by Ian Hart in the very first Harry Potter film (which was titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States, because Warner Bros. execs presumably thought American kids would be frightened by the word "philosopher"). Harry — played by Daniel Radcliffe in that movie and Dominic McLaughlin in the forthcoming HBO series — first meets Quirrell in The Leaky Cauldron, a secretly magical London pub that contains the entrance to the hidden wizarding thoroughfare Diagon Alley, before later reuniting with him at Hogwarts. 

I called Quirrell a minor character, and while I'm technically correct, he's still pretty key to the first chapter in Harry Potter's story. Here's why.

I guess I should note that I'm about to drop spoilers for a book that was released in 1997 and a film that came out in 2001, but still — if you've somehow avoided the Quirrell-related twist from the first Harry Potter book and movie, come back once you know the deal. For the rest of you, a refresher. Quirrell is ... weird, and not just because he's a white guy who wears a turban. Throughout the first chapter of Harry's story, Quirrell seems frightened of absolutely everything despite being a guy whose job is to teach kids how to battle scary dark forces. That's why the twist at the end of this installment is so jarring.

As it turns out, Harry never knew the real Quirrell, because shortly before their introduction at the Leaky Cauldron, Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort himself. (Voldemort's casting in the HBO series has, as of this writing, not been revealed.) The turban isn't just a stylish accessory, but it's actually designed to hide the fact that part of Voldemort's spirit is hanging off the back of the guy's head. (This does, admittedly, make a throwaway line in the book about consummate troublemakers Fred and George Weasley pelting Quirrell's turban with snowballs after a blizzard much funnier.) As part of a gambit to steal the titular Philosopher's Stone, which can confer immortality to its user, Voldemort, using Quirrell's body, tries to trick Harry into stealing the stone from a protected space under Hogwarts.

Quirrell ends up dying in this attempt — long story — and is never seen in the franchise again. Still, he plays a pretty vital role in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," which arrives on HBO on Christmas Day 2026.