Bill Nighy joins audio cast
Bill Nighy has been revealed in a recast role as Horace Slughorn for the full‑cast Audible adaptation of the Harry Potter series. (screenrant.com) The article notes HBO’s Hermione actor Stanton voiced Hermione for the first three full‑cast audio editions, with Frankie Treadway as Harry and Max Lester as Ron in earlier audio casts. (screenrant.com)
Bill Nighy is voicing Professor Horace Slughorn in the new full-cast audio edition of *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince*, released April 14. (pottermorepublishing.com) Pottermore Publishing and Audible announced Nighy for the role in October 2025 as part of a cast of more than 200 performers across all seven books. Audible said the productions are co-produced with Pottermore and released monthly, starting with *Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone* on November 4, 2025. (audible.com) Nighy already has a Harry Potter screen credit: he played Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour in *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1*. In the films, Slughorn was played by Jim Broadbent in *Half-Blood Prince* and *Deathly Hallows – Part 2*. (screenrant.com) The audio series is not using one fixed trio for all seven books. Audible said Frankie Treadaway, Max Lester and Arabella Stanton voice Harry, Ron and Hermione in books one through three, while Jaxon Knopf, Rhys Mulligan and Nina Barker-Francis take over those roles from book four through book seven. (audible.com) That split follows the novels’ age progression, with younger-sounding leads in the early stories and older voices from *Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire* onward. The broader cast also includes Hugh Laurie as Albus Dumbledore, Matthew Macfadyen as Lord Voldemort, Riz Ahmed as Professor Snape, Michelle Gomez as Professor McGonagall and Cush Jumbo as narrator. (jkrowling.com) Audible has pitched the project as a separate listening option rather than a replacement for the older English-language recordings. Pottermore Publishing said the new versions will sit alongside the single-voice editions narrated by Jim Dale and Stephen Fry. (pottermorepublishing.com) By mid-April 2026, the rollout had reached book six, leaving one installment still to come. Pottermore Publishing’s release schedule set *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* for May 12, 2026, completing the monthly launch plan announced last year. (harrypotter.com) So the immediate news is a recast inside a recast: Nighy returns to the franchise, but not to his old part, as Audible’s adaptation moves into the series’ final stretch. (audible.com)
