Tom Felton surprised Wizarding World fans over a year ago when he confirmed that he’d reprise the role of Draco Malfoy on Broadway for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Since then, the British actor has donned a blonde wig in order to play the former Slytherin student and give us a look at Malfoy 19 years later. Of course, fans already saw Felton as an older Draco during the epilogue of Deathly Hallows – Part 2. However, the star now jokes that his latest Malfoy look is a lot more “flattering” than the previous one.
In The Cursed Child, Felton’s Malfoy has a full head of long, blonde hair, which still makes him look somewhat youthful. Filmmaker David Yates and his makeup and hairstyling team went in a different direction for Deathly Hallows. In the film, Draco is shown with hints of facial hair, a receding hairline and some light wrinkles. Felton addressed that during an episode of Harry Potter: The Official Film Podcast and provided some keen insight into how his aged-up look in the film was crafted:
The truth is, they did quite a lot of research into what we would look like 19 years later, when we shot the scene. So that meant photographs of my brothers, I have three older ones, my dad, their hairlines, their facial complexion. And so, around that, they designed what Draco would look like 19 years later, which seemed rather unfair compared to Harry and Ron, personally. But I’m glad I get to put that right by being here and showing you what Draco actually looks like 19 years later. I [it’s] think somewhat more flattering than what they did in the films.
I can admit that Draco’s Cursed Child look is more “flattering” compared to his appearance in Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (which is streamable with an HBO Max subscription). However, I applaud the film’s hair and makeup team for striving for a sense of accuracy in crafting the look. While Malfoy may look different compared to his former schoolmates, it’s easy to buy that he’s nearly two decades older. Check out some snippets from that emotional, final scene in the post below, which also includes Felton’s thoughts on filming it:
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Something that’s also worth mentioning is that when it comes to stage productions, an actor’s look can be a bit more heightened or even streamlined for a production. Keeping that in mind, I won’t argue with the decisions made for Draco’s appearance in The Cursed Child, which can be seen in the post below:
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His looks aside, Tom Felton has apparently been focusing on various aspects of his performance since joining the HP stage production. The Fackham Hall star spoke about that preparation last fall, at which point he said he’d been warming up his “Pottahs.” Felton also opened up about the emotional moment he tried on his wig for the first time. Clearly, in some ways, he’s still enthralled by the magic of this franchise.
Felton’s time with the play is coming to an end on January 3, 2027 but, shortly after, Rupert Grint will be joining the U.S. tour as Ron Weasley on February 2. After that latter announcement was made, Felton reacted by showing love to his former co-star. Now, with Grint set to come back into the fold, I’m wondering what kind of hairstyling might be done for his older interpretation of Ron. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see if it’s as flattering as Felton’s set of locks.
