Stranger Things star Jamie Campbell Bower recalled how he bombed his Harry Potter audition by telling a NSFW joke.
Bower rose to fame earlier this year when he starred as the villainous Vecna in the fourth season of Netflix’s hit sci-fi series.
During a recent appearance on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Bower recalled a significant misstep he made in an audition for the 2001 film Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Bower, 33, was a teenager when he met with the film’s producer Chris Columbus. He was going up for the titular role of Harry Potter, which famously went to Daniel Radcliffe.
The actor was asked to prepare a joke for his audition.
“I had just heard this joke about a fairy, like, the reason why the fairy sits on top of the Christmas tree. And it’s a really, like, dirty joke, because it’s about the Christmas tree up somebody’s bottom,” Bower recalled.
“And I told this joke in the audition, and there was again, this sort of air of silence after I said it. And I was like, ‘Well, f***ed that up.’”
While Bower may not have gotten the part, he later joined the franchise in 2010 when he played a young Grindelwald in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
He reprised the role in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018).
Bower recalled how his London agent Simon Beresford had proposed him for the role of Grindelwald.
“Simon said, ‘Well Jamie’s now, you know, properly working, and is not telling too many rude jokes anymore,” he joked.
Season four of Stranger Things is available to watch on Netflix.
