Severus Snape reveals an awesome ‘Harry Potter’ secret

Fourteen years later, you’d think we’d know all the secrets from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or, Philosopher’s Stone, for our friends across the pond). Turns out, there are still many secrets left uncovered, and Professor Snape just shared a brand new one with us: during many scenes of the film featuring Harry, Ron and Hermione, they’re not actually being played by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. They’re being played by adult stand-ins. Whaaaaat?

Yes, this is a startling revelation, but it’s also one that makes complete sense when you learn why they were MIA for many scenes. Alan Rickman, who played Professor Snape throughout the course of the movies, recently gave a BAFTA talk (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and revealed this BIG HP secret.

While filming the movie, Radcliffe, Grint and Watson were all between the ages of 11-12, and all three of them had to abide by strict child actor laws. They could only spend so much time on set before they had to go to school — and real school, not Potions class. So for scenes where the action didn’t focus directly on our trio, they were replaced by “very small adult actors wearing wigs” so filming could continue.

This didn’t just apply to them, though. Think of all the students at Hogwarts, and as Rickman pointed out, “Sometimes there were 300 children on set, and at certain points they all had to go off and do some schoolwork.” He then continued on, explaining that if we look closely, we can see, “that ain’t Daniel’s head.”

Mind = blown. What other Sorcerer’s Stone secrets are out there? BRB, gotta go rewatch a movie (or eight) a few times.

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