When Paapa Essiedu signed on to play Severus Snape in HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter TV adaptation, it should have been a career-defining moment. Instead, it’s come with something far darker. According to the actor, when he took on the role, famously originally brought to the screen by the late great Alan Rickman, he received a wave of online abuse that has crossed into explicit death threats.
In a recently published interview from The Sunday Times, Essiedu describes the backlash as intense, personal, and, at times, genuinely alarming. Essiedu didn’t mince words when describing what he’s been dealing with since his casting was announced. He explained:
