Harry Potter fans have gained their first glimpse of John Lithgow as Dumbledore, via a mysterious set of photos showing the long-bearded wizard on a beach.
Lithgow will play Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter TV series, which will debut its first season in 2027. This week, the actor was spotted on a beach in Cornwall, in costume for the first time.
But the appearance has raised fresh questions for Potter fans, not least because the photos appear to show Dumbledore in a new scene not found in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone — the first novel in the series which the TV show is currently turning into its first season.
According to the Daily Mail, Lithgow was seen by fans walking in the sea, then holding his wrist and looking in pain. Images also show large cue cards with latin words, including the phrase “Murus cadat, via pateat.” IGN has translated this to: “Let the wall fall, let the way be clear.”
Potter fans will know of a famous sequence with Dumbledore entering a beachside cave, as he and a teenage Harry hunt Horcruxes. But this doesn’t take place until Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, the series’ penultimate novel, and there’s no reason the series would skip ahead to film this now, rather than in five years’ time. Dumbledore also doesn’t speak this phrase at any point. So what’s going on here?
