Ben Barnes breaks silence on ‘Harry Potter’ casting rumours

Ben Barnes acknowledges fans’ desire to see him as Sirius Black in Harry Potter reboot.

The 43-year-old actor shared that he receives much love from the fans of much loved fantasy series, in conversation with Us Weekly, on Saturday, February 1st.

The Dorian Gray star said, “You wouldn’t believe the amount of Harry Potter books I’ve signed or Gryffindor scarves I’ve been given as gifts. The amount of fan fiction that I’ve been drafted into very enthusiastically is incredible.”

Fans online have made several fan-edits of Barnes as the character Sirius Black in the series, so much so that Google now displays “Who does Ben Barnes play in Harry Potter?” as top suggestion.

“It’s been going on for 20 years that people have been very kindly saying that they would’ve liked me to have played a young version of the Sirius Black character in Harry Potter, but now it’s been going on so long that I’m now the age of the actual character in the books,” the Shadow and Bone actor added.

“Now I understand that it was this group of Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Andrew Garfield and myself that they were just very keen to be these characters when they kind of came out,” Barnes shared, adding that he’s a “massive” fan of Gary Oldman, who played Sirius Black in the films, and loved the books.

The Punisher actor went on to add that he hasn’t officially been approached by Warner Bros. yet about potentially playing Sirius, but he would love to play the Prisoner of Azkaban in the upcoming show.

“They’re books that I love and at least half of my career has been based on literary adaptations that I’ve loved,” he noted. “And that one, I see no reason why it would be any different, but I haven’t spoken to anyone about it yet.”

Speaking about the fans’ excitement about him as the beloved character, he said, “I find it very flattering, but it is quite weird to be kind of lauded for something that you never did.”