Harry Potter's Weasley Twin Actor Had 'Great Delight' Rubbing His Success in His School Teacher's Face
We can’t blame him, though: is there a better feeling in the world than showing the naysayers just how wrong they were about you the entire time?
Getting the first role in a big movie is always a massive breakthrough for an actor, and for many, it takes years of failure to achieve the slightest success. Just as with many other creative industries, becoming an actor is a massive bet — and for the majority of the players, it’s a losing one. Some don’t even get to enter the casino.
The realization of potential failure is stressful enough for young and aspiring actors, but as if they were not under pressure, there are always naysayers who try to discourage them from chasing their dream.
Most performers have stories about them, and those artists who actually make it don’t have the fondest memories about those guys.
Many actors have to wait for years until they can rub it in the naysayers’ faces and prove that they achieved their goals. Others, however, don’t spend much time waiting at all: the younger cast of the Harry Potter movies, for one, were barely even teenagers when they bagged their roles in the world-famous franchise!
The Weasley twins actors, James and Oliver Phelps, came from a small town that hasn’t produced any actors at all, so even their drama teacher tried to discourage them from even attempting to follow this career path. Well, all the more pleasant it was for James Phelps to rub it in his face after bagging the role in Harry Potter.
“The drama teacher at our school said ‘don’t take drama for your high school level because you won’t have a career in it.’ So, I had great delight going back to him after that summer and be like ‘well, you know nothing,’” James shared with Michael Rosenbaum on the Inside of You podcast.
After the Phelps brothers told this story for the first time, the current students of their school reached out to them and shared that that interview was banned by the administration. Apparently, the new students kept referring to it and telling the naysayer teacher that he “knows nothing” every time he tried giving the same advice to them.
Oh, James and Oliver were happy to hear that their legacy lived on. They really are Fred and George Weasley for their school back home, aren’t they?