Featured Image Credit: ITV/Warner bros.
Topics: Harry Potter, ITV, TV And Film
Kya Buller
Despite the last Harry Potter film hitting screens all the way back in 2011, interest in the magical franchise has never died down. And it turns out a This Morning presenter actually had a role in the hit films... but you likely won't recognise him.
Making his debut as This Morning host, Ben Shephard saw his chance to reveal his little-known cameo, and viewers have been left mind-blown.
He and Cat Deeley were announced the official replacements of Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, after the longtime hosts left the programme last year.
Holly announced she was stepping down as a regular host on the show in October last year, saying that she’d made the decision for her and her family.
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Meanwhile, Schofield left the show earlier in the year, having admitted to having an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a younger male colleague while still married to his wife.
Shephard used his new gig to show viewers a behind the scenes photo of him donning shoulder length hair and a moustache, while on set of no other than Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince in 2009.
The chat came about as the pair were discussing controversial comments Miriam Margoyles made about Harry Potter being for children, which had rubbed some fans up the wrong way.
Margolyes, who played Professor Sprout in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, came under fire from swathes of adult Harry Potter fans after she declared in an interview with New Zealand TV network 1News: “I worry about Harry Potter fans.”
She continued: “They should be over that by now. It was 25 years ago and it's for children. I think it's for children.
“But they get stuck in it and I do Cameos and people say 'Oh we are having a Harry Potter-themed wedding' and I think, ‘Gosh, what's their first night of fun going to be? I can't even think about it.”
Anyway, off the back of this, Shephard explained that he was filming a documentary on set when he was offered the role of an extra.
The presenter jumped at the chance, and was filmed in Fred and George's Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes in Diagon Alley.
Despite his excitement, Shephard was ultimately cut from the film, so he received no credited role.
There appears to be no bad blood, though.
He joked: “Mrs S still yearns for the long hair and full moustache.”
Safe to say, viewers couldn't believe their eyes after the reveal.
One wrote on X: "BEN was in Harry Potter!????????"
To give credit where it’s due, the wizard look really suits him!