John Lithgow gives me nightmares – he shouldn’t be anywhere near Dumbledore 

This week, we finally learned which lucky actors are joining the upcoming Harry Potter reboot cast on HBO. 

Illustrious names like Janet McTeer, Nick Frost, Paul Whitehouse and Paapa Essiedu are all at Diagon Alley now, picking out their wands and robes ahead of the show’s release as early as next year.  

As a Grawp-sized fan of the books, I’m as excited as a first-year Hogwarts student at the start of term to see this new adaptation of the iconic book series. 

However, one name on the cast list made my blood run colder than an encounter with a Dementor. 

I’m talking, of course, about John Lithgow.  

Now, John will be playing the kindly Professor Dumbledore – a role made famous first by Richard Harris and then by Michael Gambon. However, I don’t think John should be allowed within 30 feet of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, let alone be its headmaster.  

Why? Well, you might think it’s because he’s an American and that, as a tea-drinking, corgi walking, roast-eating Brit, I’m having a fit of cultural pride, and want all the top cast of this quintessentially British series to be from the UK. 

Honestly, though? I couldn’t care less that he’s from the other side of the pond.  

It makes no difference to me that he can’t pronounce aluminium properly or thinks crisps are chips; that’s as immaterial as an invisibility cloak. 

No. What bothers me is that he’s a killer.  

Not in real life, of course. 

But to me, and many others, he’ll always send a shiver down our spine because of one iconic performance. 

You see, 16 years ago, Lithgow played a terrifying villain in season four of the beloved (well, relatively well-liked if you ignore the later series) drama Dexter.  

If you didn’t watch it, the series followed Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a blood spatter analyst who, by day, locked up criminals and by night, chopped up criminals. That’s right, Dexter was a serial killer who would target other Miami murderers to satisfy his bloodlust. 

Nevertheless, across the show’s original run of eight seasons, there was only one criminal who was so cruel and violent that even the unfeeling Dexter was terrified of him: The Trinity Killer. 

Fans of the show will no doubt remember John’s inimitable performance as the sinister Trinity, aka, Arthur Mitchell, but if you weren’t watching, he was without doubt the most evil homicidal maniac Dexter ever dealt with. 

What made Trinity so dangerous was how he killed his victims.

He didn’t just chop them into pieces; his kills involved a dark ritual (maybe he’d make a good Death Eater?) that included drowning young boys in concrete, targeting women and slicing them open in the bath, as well as forcing mothers to commit suicide. 

All in all, it was thought that Arthur killed 276 people over 33 years. That’s a body count that even Lord Voldemort would be proud of. 

Thankfully, in the show, Dexter was able to bring John’s character to justice… by which I mean he murdered Trinity, dismembered the corpse, and threw what was left in the sea.

However, while Trinity may be dead and buried, the nightmare lives on for those who watched John’s terrifying turn.  

Strangely, though, what I remember most – more than his heinous crimes or his final spiteful act of murdering Dexter’s wife – was his eyes. It was his eyes that truly terrified me while watching the show.

To borrow a quote from Jaws, they were ‘lifeless, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes’. 

I just can’t imagine that instead of Dumbledore’s kindly twinkling blue peepers peering over his iconic half-moon spectacles, we’re going to have those terrible, inscrutable orbs staring into Harry’s soul. 

Truthfully, it’s a credit to John’s prodigious skill as an actor that he’s left such an indelible mark on my psyche, a sort of psychic scar that refuses to heal. Even now, I can only ever see him as Trinity. 

Of course, Trinity isn’t the only iconic character John has played, nor is it the only villain (the Shrek fans will riot if I don’t mention Lord Farquaad). 

Still, because Trinity was the first role I saw John in as an adult (I was in university when I first watched Dexter), the image of him as a ruthless killer has been frozen in my brain like it’s been hit with a freezing charm. 

It’s not fair, I know. I won’t look at Nick Frost, for instance, when he lumbers onto screen wearing Hagrid’s great big bushy beard, and see the gormless Ed from Shaun of the Dead.  

Unfortunately for John, though, I think the sheer intensity of his performance has led me to forever typecast John as a murderer. 

I’m hardly alone in my Lithgow-phobia either. When the news broke, my best friend immediately texted me saying: ‘I do like John Lithgow, but also he’s Trinity.’  

Similarly, a quick look at X will bring up several people asking how HBO could think to put the Trinity Killer in charge of a school full of kids.  

And naturally, I’m being slightly dramatic here – I’m sure an actor of Lithgow’s standing will do a great job. 

After all, Dumbledore is a dark character with plenty of nuance. 

Yes, we know him as a rather cheery figure, but as we learned in The Deathly Hallows, there was a darker, more ruthless side to the wizard. 

Perhaps the show wants to put a fresh spin on the character by exploring these aspects of his personality? 

Yet, I know for a fact that when I inevitably tune in to the new Potter show and Lithgow makes his debut, I won’t see the greatest wizard who ever lived – I’ll see a killer.

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