First Harry Potter Set Photos Feature Series’ Young Star and the Dursleys, as HBO TV Series Films at London Zoo

The first set photos showing filming of HBO’s Harry Potter TV series have hit the internet, giving fans a look at the series’ young star and his Muggle family, the Dursleys.

Filming took place this week at London Zoo, the setting of a key scene in the first Harry Potter book where Harry (now played by Dominic McLaughlin) magically frees a snake and sets it loose on his spoiled cousin Dudley.

The images are our first look at Dudley (Amos Kitson), Aunt Petunia (Bel Powley) and Uncle Vernon (Daniel Rigby) in costume, wearing notably dated clothes. Dudley is dressed in a shellsuit, while Vernon wears a patterned shirt and thick glasses, while sporting a bushy moustache.

The characters’ looks fit with the original setting of the books, with Dudley’s 11th birthday being in June 1991, a couple of months before Harry goes off to Hogwarts for the first time.

While the original Harry Potter novels were launched from 1997 onwards, the series’ story is set a few years prior. The events of the final book wrap up in 1998, before a flashforward epilogue featuring the main characters as adults with their own children, set in 2017.

London Zoo guests got a close-up look at the cast as they were filmed while wandering around various exhibits. The zoo setting will likely be one of the first book/season’s only scenes to be filmed in public, with the bulk of the action due to be shot on the series’ vast base of operations at Warner Bros. Leavesdon Studios.

Indeed, it’s there that a real-life school with room for up to 600 young cast members is now being constructed, as production ramps up.

https://twitter.com/WW_Direct/status/1945785916712247485?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Warner Bros. and HBO’s plan is to turn each Harry Potter book into its own TV season, and film the series for the next eight to 10 years. The first season is due to air in 2027.

HBO marked the beginning of the series’ filming this week with the release of a photo showing Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter in his Hogwarts robes. This was then followed by a first look at Shaun of the Dead star Nick Frost in costume as Hagrid.

Yet to glimpsed in costume are veteran actor John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape, Paul Whitehouse as Argus Filch and Katherine Parkinson as Molly Weasley.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social