Harry Potter fans like to think they know everything about the franchise, but it turns out there’s actually quite a lot of secrets from set that we only found out much later!
This includes multiple relationships between cast members, including those of the actresses that played key roles, such as Luna Lovegood and Ginny Weasley.
It seems J.K. Rowling was quite the matchmaker…
First up, you may remember Emma Thompson for playing the Divination teacher, Professor Trelawney, in the film series. But what you may not know is that she was previously been married to another Harry Potter star – Kenneth Branagh, who played Gilderoy Lockhart.
But it turns out that their marriage was not a happy one. In fact, it was marred by infidelity. Branagh reportedly had multiple affairs, including one with yet another Harry Potter star, Helena Bonham-Carter!
Yes, you read that right. Gilderoy Lockhart cheated on Professor Trelawney with Bellatrix LeStrange. And recently, Emma Thompson has spoken out to the New Yorker about the betrayal.
“I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set. What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself. I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely,” she revealed.
However, in a different interview, Thompson also revealed that she has since moved on from the betrayal.
“I’ve had so much bloody practice at crying in a bedroom, then having to go out and be cheerful, gathering up the pieces of my heart and putting them in a drawer,” Thompson explained in an interview with The Telegraph.
“That is… all blood under the bridge. You can’t hold on to anything like that. I just think… pfft. It’s pointless. I haven’t got the energy for it. Helena and I made our peace years and years ago… she’s a wonderful woman.”
But they weren’t the only Harry Potter actors to have a complicated relationship in real life…
Evanna Lynch who famously played Luna Lovegood had a 9 year relationship with co-star Robbie Jarvis, who played a younger version of James Potter in the fifth movie, Order of the Phoenix.
The pair dated in secret until 2015 when they went Instagram official, but unfortunately, not long after the pair split.
However, it appears there’s no bad blood between the two, as Lynch told Us Weekly (via The Mirror): “We’re both vegans, so we go to a lot of vegan events together.
“So yeah, we’re good friends,” she added at the premiere of the Harry Potter spin-off movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
And that’s not even all of the movie’s romantic pairings!
It turns out that Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley, was another cast member who got romantically involved with one of her co-stars.
The now thirty-one-year-old dated fellow actor Jamie Campbell Bower after the pair met on the set of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.
Campbell Bower, who has also starred in films such as The Twilight Saga: New Moon and The Mortal Instruments, played young Gellert Grindelwald in the penultimate Harry Potter movie. He also went on to reprise this role for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
Per LADBible, Campbell Bower dated Wright for 2 years after their first meeting in 2010. Things went so well, in fact, that they were even engaged at one point!
However, it wasn’t meant to be, and the pair split in 2012.
Fans have taken to social media in response to this revelation.
One wrote: “So no one was gonna tell me that Jamie Campbell Bower and Bonnie Wright dated for 3 years????”
Another commented: “Wait Jamie Campbell Bower dated bonnie wright????? Omg.”
