Tom Felton was 13 when they bleached his hair and handed him a decade inside the biggest movie franchise on the planet. By his mid-twenties he was parked at a dive bar in LA most nights, drinking pints before sundown with whiskey chasers. His agents, his managers, his girlfriend, his lawyer, they all showed up for an intervention. Sent him to a rehab facility in Malibu that cost $40,000 a month. He walked out after one day. He went through several more rounds over the next couple years. Then in 2021, he collapsed on live TV at a celebrity golf event and got carted off the course. He was 34. Emma Watson (Hermione in the original films) pushed him to be honest about all of it in his memoir. The book hit #1 on the New York Times list. In it, Felton wrote: “To this day I never know which version of myself I’m going to wake up to.” That’s the guy who just reached out to 14-year-old Lox Pratt, the kid cast as the new Draco Malfoy in HBO’s Harry Potter reboot. And he didn’t give him acting tips. He told Pratt “this is your journey,” then just gave the kid his phone number. In case he ever needs to talk. Radcliffe wrote a letter to the new Harry. Grint wrote one to the new Ron. All three original stars reached out. But i keep thinking about Felton’s version of this, because he’s the one who knows what the fame actually does to you when nobody’s watching. He’s 38 now and playing adult Draco on Broadway (literally 400 meters from Radcliffe’s own show, which is kind of wild). On a podcast this week he called the social media pressure these new kids will face “inconceivable.” When Felton filmed the originals, they shot on actual film. The mic boom guy was a 70-year-old rolling cigarettes between takes. No Twitter. No comment sections. No millions of people with opinions about a child’s performance in real time. The HBO series drops Christmas 2026. Seven seasons planned. A full decade of filming. Lox Pratt is the exact same age Felton was when all of this started for him. And the man who barely survived what comes after just handed the kid his number and said “I’m there.”

Tom Felton has reached out to Lox Pratt “Have as much fun as possible, take as many pictures as you can, steal as many props as you can — they’ll be worth a fortune. But also, if you do need a word of encouragement or questions to ask, I’m there.” (via: Happy Sad Confused)