Emmet Smith on Geeking Out With Tom Felton & Saving the Wizarding World in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Age: 26

Hometown: Washington Heights in New York City

Current Role: Emmet Smith is making his Broadway debut as Albus Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Credits: Smith comes to Broadway directly from the national tour of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. His off-Broadway credits include Philadelphia, Here I Come!, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Soul Doctor. He is also the songwriter of two musicals: Happily: A New Musical and A Bridge to the Moon.

Runs in the Family
Born and raised in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, Smith is used to being surrounded by theater people. His father, Jonathan Smith, is a Broadway music director and his mother is a "recovered stage manager." While attending Hunter College High School, whose alumni include Tony winners Lin-Manuel Miranda, Cynthia Nixon, and Robert Lopez, Smith found his footing. "I was always in my dad's dressing room and liked being surrounded by actors and musicians and artists, " he says. "It just was in the blood."

Twin Flame
Smith often finds himself being pulled in different directions, something he credits to his astrological sign. "I'm just a Gemini," Smith says with a laugh. "I've blown with the wind a lot, which has been an asset and also a point of confusion. I think my two-faced manipulatable frame of mind has played a big role in my life. When I was surrounded by my baseball friends, I wanted to be a baseball player. And when I was in high school jazz band, I was set on being a jazz drummer. My path to Broadway has been winding in a fun and confusing way." The passion for theater has still been ever-present. "My mom recently gave me this book that I wrote as a third grader, and the 'About the Author' section says 'When I grow up, I would like to play for the New York Yankees or be an actor on Broadway,'" he says. "That desire and dream has been there for a long time, so to to be here now is totally surreal."

More Than a Play
As a singer and songwriter, Smith thought that his way to the Broadway stage would be through a musical, but when the Hogwarts Express arrived he couldn't resist boarding the train. "I've almost always done musicals and Cursed Child feels like a musical in so many ways," Smith says. "There's so much movement: the pace, the scale, the tech and the amount of people running around backstage changing costumes and setting the next illusion. [It] feels so musical-esque." 

All Aboard to Broadway
After a year on the road, Smith headed to Broadway's Lyric Theatre along with his fellow tour cast members John Skelley as Harry Potter and Aidan Close as Scorpius Malfoy. "It's so beyond my wildest dreams to be doing the show with people from tour," he says. "Aidan is one of my closest friends in the world. He's so brilliant in the show, and I feel like the connection that we have has been built on 400 shows of figuring it out together. It's such a mishmash of experiences that we all draw from every night and we get to create our own map together of year seven on Broadway."

The Felton Effect
Making his Broadway debut alongside Smith is Tom Felton, the screen star known for portraying Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series, reprising his role as an adult. "The phrase I hear all the time is 'the Tom Felton of it all,' which is so true and amazing," he says. "First of all, he comes on stage and gets that entrance applause, which is great because it buys me another 30 seconds for my quick change, which is usually six seconds." To celebrate the new cast, there was a gala celebration, and it was clear Felton has quickly found his footing within the cast by running up to pose with Smith and give his onstage son a kiss on the cheek. "He is so sweet and humble and such an intelligent actor that you forget that he's Tom Felton," Smith says. "He's curious about our world of theater, and we're curious about his world that he grew up in. He's just as geeked out to be here as we are to have him."

50 Points to Ravenclaw
Although Smith first donned the Hogwarts uniform for the national tour of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child last summer, he's been eyeing the Broadway production for years. "I have loved the show since I was in high school," he says. "I asked for tickets for Christmas, and I got to see the original cast and saw [original Broadway Albus] Sam Clemmett." As a self-proclaimed Ravenclaw, Smith has spent his time reexamining the themes in the books and on stage. "There's so much grief and unprocessed trauma that these dads are passing on to their kids that we get to finally reckon with in our play," he says. "It really is about what you pass on to your children and what they choose to do with that. It's also a story about the dangers of isolation and what that can drive young people to do, but what we can overcome together, despite our grief and our biases. It's so much fun to choose love over fear and then try to save the Wizarding World."

No Place Like Home
For Smith, the icing on the cake of his Broadway debut is being able to get back to his hometown routine and be surrounded by his support system. "I'm born and raised in New York, and now I get to watch Survivor with my family again and welcome Aidan [Close] into the city," he says. "It's [Close's] first time really living in New York and settling in. He became a Dodgers fan on tour when we were in L.A. I can't have that, so I got him a Yankees hat. We're fixing it, don't worry. It's good to be home."

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