Dirty Joke That Stole Jamie Campbell Bower's Chance to Play Harry Potter
Now, it is simply impossible to imagine anyone but Daniel Radcliffe playing a wizard with lightning struck across his forehead.
But back at the time, Daniel was one of many who auditioned for the role of Harry Potter, and the story of one of his rivals has only recently been revealed.
Jamie Campbell Bower, known to many for his role of Vecna in Stranger Things, recently admitted on a podcast Happy Sad Confused that he auditioned for the role of Harry Potter for the movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone... only to fail it because he told a very dirty joke.
"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," the actor said.
He also shared that he immediately realized that the joke was ruining everything and that it was out of place as a dead silence hung around him.
"And I told this joke in the audition, and there was again, this sort of, like ... air of just like silence after I said it. And I was like, 'Well... f****d that up,'" Jamie said.
No one knows what the fate of the Boy Who Lived franchise would have been if someone else had gotten the role. But what we can say for sure is that the actor's career has done well without this role in his piggy bank.
People are already know him from films such as Guy Ritchie 's RocknRolla and Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
And the actor still managed to become a part of the wizarding franchise in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, where he embodied the image of young Gellert Grindelwald, a dark wizard who was considered the strongest before the arrival of Voldemort.
As the role of Vecna brought him great success and recognition, fans hope that the actor will remember this Harry Potter audition incident only as a funny memory without any regrets.