The Harry Potter movies featured some of the best casting in cinema history. Pretty much every British actor of note popped up, with the cinematic versions of the characters instantly becoming the definitive versions in fans’ minds. One of the most successful though has got to be Ralph Fiennes’ Lord Voldemort. As the primary antagonist over the entire series, they absolutely had to get him right, and the actor’s performance (combined with creepily effective VFX) created a villain for the ages.
Sadly, Deathly Hallows Part 2 had to be the character’s swansong in the Potterverse. Or at least, that’s what we assumed. Fiennes recently appeared on the BBC current affairs programme Newsnight though, where he was asked how he’d feel about returning to the role. Cryptically, he said:
“Well, there are variants, aren’t there? Fantastic Beasts and things.”
It’s an interesting answer, and the interviewer then pushed a little further, causing Fiennes to explain the following:
“I feel a kind of affection for Voldemort. So if there was a world in which Voldemort came back, I would be very possessive about wanting to reprise that.”
So, could Lord Voldemort make an appearance in the Fantastic Beasts series? Well, let’s look at the timeline. The first two films are set in 1926 and 1927, and we know that the climactic face-off between Dumbledore and Grindelwald takes place in 1945. Most fans assume that’s where the spinoff franchise will come to end. So where’s Voldemort in all this?
Well, he was born in 1926, begins to attend Hogwarts in 1938 and graduates in 1945, a timeline which strongly indicates that Fiennes cannot reprise the role, as during the Fantastic Beasts movies Voldemort would’ve still been Hogwarts student Tom Riddle. However, it seems there may at least be a chance of Riddle appearing in the later films and perhaps his arrival could allow the movie to show us a prophecy, dream or flash-forward depicting the Fiennes’ version of the character.
On top of all that, J.K. Rowling’s recently demonstrated that she’s willing to play fast and loose with the Potterverse timeline, so if she wants it to happen, I’m sure she can make it work.
