Harry Potter and the Cursed Child's Sam Clemmett on Finding His Way into Albus Potter & More

Sam Clemmett is making his Broadway debut in the highly anticipated Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the epic two-play theatrical epilogue to J.K. Rowling’s seven Harry Potter novels. Clemmett plays Albus Potter, Harry’s teen son, who struggles to find his place at his father’s alma mater, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Clemmett (who identifies as a Hufflepuff for those with inquiring minds about his Hogwarts house) got into acting at an early age and notably landed a role in Lord of the Flies at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre without the benefit of an agent—the only one in the cast without one. After outrageous acclaim, awards and adulation in the original London production of Cursed Child, Clemmett is ready to open in the production on April 22.

Getting Active
It took Clemmett some time to figure out what activities suited him when he was growing up in a small town northeast of London. “I was very shy when I was a kid and somewhat of an introvert,” says the young actor. “I had a good circle of friends that were all very sporty, including my brother. And that was something I tried to fit in and be good at, but it never really took off.” He enlisted his mother to help him find an after-school activity. “I needed something to put my energy into,” he says. His mother suggested he join a theater arts course in Norwich. He did and swiftly found a new group of friends and started flourishing. His early roles include Officer Krupke in West Side Story and Ali Hakim in Oklahoma! “[The theater kids] were very different to the people I was growing up with at school. All of the sudden, it started to make sense, and I came out of my shell.”

A Normal Potter Fan
How into Harry Potter was Clemmett in his pre-Cursed Child life? “I read the books as I was growing up. I wasn't someone to queue up at midnight and wait for the next book, but I was a big fan of them like everyone else seems to be as well. I loved the films. And then once I'd seen them all and read them all, I didn't so much put them to bed, but they just weren't as big a part of my life as it is for a lot of other people.” That all changed when Harry Potter and the Cursed Child auditions came up and he re-read the books. “After a long long process of auditioning and getting the part of Albus, it was lovely to revisit them with much more adult ties and an adult perspective.” 



No Daddy Issues
As much as Clemmett relates to Albus, he doesn’t think he has much in common with his character, especially Albus’ struggle to find his way out of his father’s shadow. “He's a very misunderstood and tricky young man,” the actor says. “I myself have a very good relationship with my dad, in particular, but my family as well. [Albus] does not, so the way in for me was the bullying aspect. I went through a small bout of bullying while I moved to high school after primary school and felt isolated for a time. That was my way of sort of understanding him, and it’s where a lot of his angst and troubles come from. I think it's also very useful as an actor to have very contrasting differences between you and the character.”

Beyond the Bright Lights
Now that Clemmett is settling into life in New York City, he says he wants to “soak up the theatrical culture New York's got to offer.” But, as much as he wants to explore the city, he’s itching to get beyond its limits. “I want to get out of Manhattan and go way upstate,” the self-proclaimed country boy says. “I want to explore as much of this country as possible and see what it's got to offer. We're very lucky to have two days off a week once we've opened, and I want to be able to take myself up and down the East Coast and go to the likes of Niagara Falls and Washington, D.C. and maybe get down to Miami. I would love to do some fishing while I'm here. I am a big big fisherman: I love going fishing and camping. I love the outdoors, and doing all that stuff with my closest friends, which we've done from when we were very young.”



The Magic of Potter
Clemmett says as soon as he auditioned for the part of Albus, he fell in love with the play. “When it came to getting the part and rehearsing it and developing it and then finally putting it in front of an audience, there was so much hype,” he remembers. “We'd thought we'd got something special on our hands, but you never truly know until your have it in front of your first live audience." He recalls his first performance in the West End: "The music started at the top of the show, and I got incredibly nervous. You go out, you say your first line, and the energy we all felt from that first preview audience in London was euphoric. We all sort of sat back into our parts and went, ‘No, actually, this is going to be all right. They seem to be with us and on this journey with us and wanting it to be good.’ And then by the end of Part Two, the response we got was like we've said so many times, it was like a rock concert. It wasn't like any theatrical experience I've ever had in my life. It was like an event. It became an event more than a piece of theater. And it celebrated what theater could be. It was amazing!”

In for the Long Haul
Many of the Potter actors who came from the U.K. are parents and moved to NYC with their families, but Clemmett’s on his own—even without his beloved dog, Noah, a three-year-old cockapoo. “Me and Anto [Anthony Boyle, who plays Scorpius Malfoy] flew out together. I started to get quite nervous going, ‘I'm going to be in New York for a very long time without my family. But then I got swept up into the madness of New York and the madness that this show has got to offer and Broadway's got to offer, and that's made it really easy. I settled a lot quicker than I expected to.  There is something about moving here and living in New York which feels right; it feels like home.”