Tragic Details About The Harry Potter Cast

Part of the reason why the "Harry Potter" mega-series — seven novels and eight movie adaptations — was such a blockbuster success was because of its humanity. Millions of readers and filmgoers were captivated by and could relate to the trials and tribulations of Harry Potter, the Weasleys, and the professors at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as they grew up or fought off the growing menace of the evil Lord Voldemort. While "Harry Potter" takes place in a world in which magic — spells, potions, transfiguration, and such — are very real and very useful, the story is really one about life, love, death, pain, hope, and tragedy.

Sadly and unfortunately, many members of the large cast of the Potter films could utilize their own real world experiences with the dark side of life to inform their film characters and performances. Here are some actors well known for their work in a "Harry Potter" movie who endured real and devastating tragedies.

For his work as Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe became extremely famous during his childhood and teenage years, a time when he was still trying to figure out his life and identity. As he aged into his elder teen years, Radcliffe started to drink heavily. "If I went out and if I got drunk, I'd suddenly be aware of there being interest in that," he told BBC Radio 4 (via The Independent). "It's 'Oh, Harry Potter's getting drunk in the bar.'" To cope with the heckling, Radcliffe said he would "drink more or get more drunk."

As the end of filming the epic saga of movies wound down, Radcliffe's alcohol consumption took on a different tone, turning into a coping mechanism. "A lot of drinking that happened towards the end of Potter and for a little bit after it finished, it was a panic, a little bit not knowing what to do next — not being comfortable enough in who I was to remain sober," Radcliffe told BBC Radio 4. In 2010, after several unsuccessful attempts, Radcliffe quit drinking.

Few actors ever make it to the levels of fame and accolades of Maggie Smith. In the Harry Potter films, she played tenacious and brilliant Hogwarts professor and Gryffindor house leader Minerva McGonagall, a highlight in a career that stretches back to the 1950s that includes dozens of films and TV series, six Oscar nominations (including two wins), nine Emmy Award nominations (with three victories for her work as the Dowager Countess on "Downton Abbey"), 20 BAFTA nods, and Queen Elizabeth II naming her a Dame Commander of the British Empire, as per Biography.

In her personal life, Smith has endured multiple health crises. In November 1988, according to the New York Times, Smith suffered a bicycle accident during a vacation in the British Virgin Islands, fracturing bones in her arm and shoulder. Upon her return home to England, doctors determined that a previously diagnosed case of hyperthyroidism had progressed into Graves' disease, an immune disorder and extreme form of hyperthyroidism (per the Mayo Clinic). The condition led to disfigurement, such as eyeball protrusion, which lasted for a year (during which time Smith largely self-isolated) and required surgery and radiotherapy.

In 2009, Smith told The Times (via Australia's ABC News) that she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer two years earlier, after discovering a lump in her breast. "It leaves you flattened," Smith said of cancer, which was ultimately declared in remission.

Helena Bonham Carter's role as the gleefully evil and casually murderous Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange in the latter "Harry Potter" movies is only one of the actor's many prominent roles since the 1980s. She also portrayed Princess Margaret on "The Crown," earned an Academy Award nomination for playing the queen mother in "The King's Speech," sang her way through "Les Miserables" and "Sweeney Todd," and was a core cast member in the cult classic "Fight Club."

Both sides of Bonham Carter's family tree are full of prominent and accomplished individuals. According to Express, her father Raymond Bonham Carter worked on behalf of the Bank of England for the International Monetary Fund, and her great grandfather was Herbert Henry Asquith, prime minister of the United Kingdom during World War I.

Bonham Carter's large and well connected family suffered a tragedy of tremendous scale in August 2008. According to the Evening Standard, seven members of the Bonham Carter extended family were riding in a van on a safari trip in Botswana. A tire blew out, the driver lost control, and the vehicle rolled over multiple times. Five of the seven Bonham Carter relatives were thrown from the van, and four died. 

In the HBO Max reunion special "Return to Hogwarts," Evanna Lynch discussed how she won the role of sweet, loopy, spaced-out Ravenclaw hippie witch Luna Lovegood in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (and then three more Potter movies) — her first ever professional gig. Lynch, 14 at the time, essentially nailed an open call audition and joined the cast of the franchise already in progress.

Lynch was a big fan of the Potter books, and during a 2018 appearance on "Dancing with the Stars" (via Cosmopolitan) she revealed part of why they were so important to her. At age 11, Lynch developed the eating disorder anorexia, for which she was hospitalized. The magical world of "Harry Potter" offered her a respite. "Anyone who's had an eating disorder knows it completely takes over your life," she said. "The only thing that could actually take my attention apart from that was the Harry Potter series." The actor has since written extensively about eating disorders and body positivity, both for The Harry Potter Alliance and in her memoir, "The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting" (via RTE).

While the child cast of the "Harry Potter" movies were largely inexperienced actors, the adult performers in the movie were some of the U.K.'s most celebrated and recognizable. Portraying Vernon Dursley, the mean, sour, apoplectic, abusive, non-magical uncle-by-marriage responsible for looking after Harry Potter after his parents are murdered but before he's whisked away to Hogwarts, was Richard Griffiths, a character actor in film and an often-awarded actor on the stage. Apart from "Harry Potter," Griffiths was best known for his role as lascivious Uncle Monty in the cult classic "Withnail and I," and he won a Tony Award for starring in "The History Boys." He'd later reunite with his "Potter" nephew, starring alongside Daniel Radcliffe in a 2008 New York production of "Equus" (via Playbill).

In March 2013, according to The Guardian, Griffiths underwent heart surgery at the University Hospital of Coventry and Warwickshire in the U.K. Shortly thereafter, he suffered complications and died. The actor was 65.

Before he appeared in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," Rob Knox didn't have too many credits — small parts in the TV series "Trust Me, I'm a Teenager" and "After You're Gone" and in the 2004 adaptation of "King Arthur." Nevertheless, he landed a role in the sixth entry in one of the biggest franchises of all time as Marcus Belby, a Ravenclaw student and member of Professor Slughorn's elite Slug Club.

According to The Guardian Knox got involved in a fight outside Metro, a bar in Sidcup, Kent. Knox was trying to break up a fight and stop a knife-wielding assailant. "Rob was just trying to help out," witness Tom Hopkins told The Guardian. Four other people were treated for stab wounds, and Knox was also stabbed, five times, but his injuries proved fatal. The actor was 18. Karl Bishop, 22, was arrested for the death and sentenced to life without parole, per the BBC.