Harry Potter: Did A Real-Life Affair Between Stars Make It Into The Books?
The "Harry Potter" books are full of Easter eggs, but some fans think one book contains a reference to a real-life British celebrity divorce — and not just any celebrity divorce, but a high-profile divorce that happened between two actors who appeared in the film adaptations.
At the beginning of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth novel in the series, Harry, who watched in "Goblet of Fire" as the Dark Lord Voldemort returned to the wizarding world and is believed by nobody, spends his time eavesdropping on his horrible Muggle relatives as they watch the evening news. He does this because he assumes that if people start dying en masse at Voldemort's hands, it might even end up getting noticed by Muggles. One night, the reports cover a divorce.
"He kept listening, just in case there was some small clue, not recognized for what it really was by the Muggles — an unexplained disappearance, perhaps, or some strange accident," the book reads, "but the baggage-handlers' strike was followed by news on the drought in the Southeast ('I hope he's listening next door!' bellowed Uncle Vernon, 'with his sprinklers on at three in the morning!'); then a helicopter that had almost crashed in a field in Surrey, then a famous actress's divorce from her famous husband ('as if we're interested in their sordid affairs,' sniffed Aunt Petunia, who had followed the case obsessively in every magazine she could lay her bony hands on)."
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" takes place in 1995; so who split up in 1995? Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh.
Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh split up in 1995 over infidelity
This divorce mentioned on the Muggle news could possibly be a sly reference to Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson's real-life split, which happened in 1995. So why did the two acclaimed writer-performers, who have both won Academy Awards for their screenplays (Branagh for "Belfast" and Thompson for "Sense and Sensibility"), part ways? Branagh was reportedly unfaithful with fellow future "Harry Potter" star Helena Bonham Carter.
Bonham Carter and Branagh worked together on "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" in 1994, and it's alleged that the two had an on-set tryst; this is on-brand for Branagh, who met Thompson during their time working on "The Fortunes of War" in 1987. Years after the fact in 2022, Thompson admitted to The New Yorker that the experience was crushing for her. "I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set," she told the magazine. "What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself."
Tragically, Thompson continued, "I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely." The good news? She remarried in 2003 and has been happy with actor Greg Wise, who appeared in "Sense & Sensibility," ever since. "I've learned more from my second marriage just by being married," she told The New Yorker. "As my mother says, 'the first twenty years are the hardest.'"
Who do Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, and Kenneth Branagh play in Harry Potter?
Kenneth Branagh appears in the second film, "Chamber of Secrets," as the pompous and fraudulent Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Gilderoy Lockhart, whose extensive series of books bragging about his own magical accomplishment turns out to be a series of falsehoods. He ends up incapacitated by Ron Weasley's (Rupert Grint) broken wand, though, and loses his memory for good.
Emma Thompson first shows up in the third movie, "Prisoner of Azkaban," and sticks around for the remainder of the series as supporting player Sybill Trelawney, Hogwarts' longtime Divination professor. Trelawney seems like a Lockhart-level fraud for a while, as her predictions are often absolutely absurd, but as Harry eventually learns from his headmaster and mentor, Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), she once went into a trance and made the prophecy that ties Harry to his nemesis Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).
Finally, Helena Bonham Carter plays Voldemort's most loyal Death Eater, Bellatrix Lestrange, introduced in "Order of the Phoenix." A devilish and deranged witch, Bellatrix delights in torture and ruin and eventually meets her end during the Battle of Hogwarts — but while she's on-screen, she's certainly a nasty piece of work. Notably, Branagh, Bonham Carter, and Thompson never, ever share any screen time together.