Did you know Dancing With The Stars icon Derek Hough was in a Harry Potter movie? Yep, you read that correctly. Years before his professional fame for the show, when he was 15, he actually resided in London. It was there that he got his dance education and, in between his training, he had the chance to be an extra in The Sorcerer’s Stone. Plus, his sister, Julianne Hough, was a Potter extra as well! And as you can imagine, this was a very memorable experience for Derek.
The beloved film was shot on location in the United Kingdom, with the Hogwarts scenes being filmed at the Alnwick Castle and a number of cathedrals and schools. Derek Hough recalled this about his time as “Hogwarts Schoolboy” in the Harry Potter film, explaining just where he pops up during the first installment in the iconic movie franchise:
I was in the very first Harry Potter movie. The scene where Hermione is going home for Christmas, and she's coming through the Great Hall, and boom, you see me walk past, I look back and I do one of [tilts head back] these and a ghost walks through me and I'm holding an owl. And I'm a Ravenclaw.
The role marked his very first time on a movie set, and the film -- which was released in 2001 -- opened six years before he'd make his first appearance on Dancing with the Stars . Check out a screenshot of the star's teenage self in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which is now streaming with an HBO Max subscription:
You can see the star in Ravenclaw attire behind Emma Watson’s Hermoine Granger. Derek Hough spoke of the experience while he was a guest on All Good Things Podcast. Here’s what else he said:
We were on the set for the very first Harry Potter film, I was there for three months as an extra. So it was cool. I was like 'Wow, we're really a part of something cool.' We'd walk around, we'd be on the set of the forest, walking around getting in trouble.
All The Harry Potter Movies In Order, From Sorcerer's Stone To Fantastic Beasts
Honestly, what a dream! When his sister Julianne Hough previously spoke about her own experience on the set of the film when she was 11, she recalled eating seven or eight full English breakfasts while shooting the Great Hall scene. She apparently chowed down so hard because she didn’t realize they could fake it for the cameras. As you might deduce, she got “so sick” on that day, but the idea of being in those Hogwarts scenes as a kid still surely inspires the envy of many Harry Potter fans. In short, the fact that the Hough siblings were on the Sorcerer’s Stone set for three months of their life is just too cool.
When it was decided that the Harry Potter books would be adapted into movies, it was a rare case in which British film industry officials actually requested that they be made in the UK, and so that came to pass. Per The Free Library, Britain child labor laws were even changed to ensure young actors could work longer hours than what Warner Bros. deemed “too rigid” for them. Even so, regulations were put in place, and the late Alan Rickman even once recalled Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint sometimes being replaced by “very small adult actors aged 33 with a wig on their heads” for that reason, per Cosmopolitan. This sounds tedious but, ultimately, it seems that things worked out for the best.
As for Derek Hough's current work, he's set to return as a judge on Dancing With The Stars in the upcoming Season 32, while Julianne Hough will also return this time as a co-host with Alfonso Ribeiro following Tyra Banks’ decision to leave the dancing competition show. All this Potter talk has me wanting to see the Hough siblings cook up a dance routine to John Williams’ legendary theme, though. Hey, maybe in HBO Max’s upcoming Harry Potter series?
