The entire wizarding world of Harry Potter wants you to stay at home.
Wizarding World Digital, the Warner Bros.-owned hub for all things Potter, has revealed its next project: a readthrough of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone–the first book in J.K. Rowling’s hit fantasy series–done by a lineup of celebrities.
Among the readers announced today are Daniel Radcliffe (who starred as the titular ‘Boy Who Lived’ in all eight Harry Potter films), Stephen Fry (the series’ original audiobook narrator), Eddie Redmayne (who stars as main character Newt Scamander in the Potter prequel film series Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Noma Dumezweni (who played Hermione Granger in the original West End and Broadway runs of sequel Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), Claudia Kim (who plays Nagini in Fantastic Beasts), actress Dakota Fanning, and famed soccer player David Beckham.
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Surprise! We’ve got a treat for you…From today, amazing friends of the Wizarding World are going to take turns reading Harry Potter book one.
And to start us off with Chapter 1, we think you’ll agree we have the perfect narrator…⚡️ #HarryPotterAtHome
https://t.co/w9K77akbou pic.twitter.com/Q03PmjeD5d— Wizarding World (@wizardingworld) May 5, 2020
Radcliffe’s 25-minute reading of the first chapter is up now on Wizarding World Digital as a video and on Spotify as an audio recording. The hub says more chapters, all free to watch and listen to, will drop over the coming months, and it appears each celebrity will read one chapter–so there are more guests yet to be announced.
Each celebrity’s video will be interspersed with Harry Potter fanart representing iconic moments from the books, the platform said. To submit, artists can tweet their work at Wizarding World’s Twitter account.
The collaborative read-aloud is part of Wizarding World Digital’s COVID-19-prompted Harry Potter at Home initiative, which is “the Wizarding World’s way of bringing Hogwarts closer to you, as we all continue to stay home and keep safe,” the company wrote. Harry Potter at Home kicked off on April 1, and includes a site of quizzes, puzzles, videos, and other offerings for kids, as well as broad approval for teachers to record themselves reading Harry Potter books and upload the videos online for their students. Additionally, it has made the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone audiobook available for free on Audible.
The initiative was developed by Rowling’s agency, The Blair Partnership, as well as Warner Bros., Audible, and publishers Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Pottermore Publishing, per Variety.
In recent weeks, Rowling has also been involved in fundraising for COVID-19 aid. On May 2–the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts–she donated £500,000 (around $617K U.S.) to Crisis, a nonprofit focused on ending homelessness, and £500,000 to Refuge, a nonprofit that supports those affected by domestic violence.
