UPDATE: Thank you to everyone for watching all of our contributors over the past months. Our video series has now ended. Please keep looking around wizardingworld.com or join the Harry Potter Fan Club for extra surprises.
Some of the best-loved faces from global entertainment, music and sport have lent their voices to the story they love by recording videos of themselves reading the timeless first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone.
We, alongside J.K. Rowling, have announced seven of those readers from the stellar line-up today.
Excitingly, Daniel Radcliffe, Stephen Fry, David Beckham, Dakota Fanning, Claudia Kim, Noma Dumezweni, and Eddie Redmayne are amongst the cast of narrators, with more surprises and special appearances from across the Wizarding World and beyond to come. Each will be reading different sections of this iconic book – with its themes of family, friendship, courage and overcoming adversity – to families around the world.
Who better to lend their voice to Chapter One than the prolific actor who portrayed Harry in all eight films? Daniel Radcliffe has kindly read the whole of Chapter One of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone, ‘The Boy Who Lived’, for your viewing and listening pleasure.
As the figurehead of the Harry Potter films for so many years, we hope you love watching this incredibly special video of Daniel revisiting Harry’s adventure – this time not on a film set, but through the pages of the first book.
We look forward to new narrators every week as they take turns to read different sections of the Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone, until we reach the end with Chapter Seventeen. Keep an eye out for some very special surprise cameos along the way too.
As you watch Daniel read through ‘The Boy Who Lived’, you’ll notice some amazing artwork interspersed in the experience, thanks to some talented fans. Brilliantly, you yourself can get involved in future chapters, from Chapter Two onwards, so your own pieces can feature alongside our special guest narrators. According to our incredible mathematics skills, you have sixteen chapters remaining of Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone to work with – so please do send in your artistic interpretations of key scenes. Read all about how to get involved here.
Harry Potter At Home is the Wizarding World’s way of bringing Hogwarts closer to you, as we all continue to stay at home and keep safe. For parents looking for new magical ways to entertain their children during this time, we launched the Harry Potter At Home hub full of quizzes, puzzles, fun videos and features, along with contributions from our friends, UK and US Harry Potter publishers, Bloomsbury and Scholastic, alongside assistance from Warner Bros., Audible and our many library partners. To learn more about everything Harry Potter At Home has to offer, our handy round-up should help!
So, without further ado, make sure you’re sitting comfortably, as we enjoy the first Harry Potter book in a whole new way. Grab a Portkey over to the first video now.
For more Harry Potter at Home updates, be sure to keep checking our magically evolving hub, or learn how to sign up to the Harry Potter Fan Club weekly newsletter. But for the whole Wizarding World experience, such as getting sorted into your official Hogwarts house, discovering your Patronus, your wand and much more, be sure to register right here.
Illustration by Jim Kay © Bloomsbury Publishing 2015