Michael Gambon, who went on to gain admiration from a new generation of moviegoers with his portrayal of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight “Harry Potter” films, has died. He was 82. Photo / Warner Bros Discovery
Michael Gambon, who went on to gain admiration from a new generation of moviegoers with his portrayal of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight “Harry Potter” films, has died. He was 82. Photo / Warner Bros Discovery
The stars of Harry Potter are leading the flood of tributes to Sir Michael Gambon – hailing him a “magnificent trickster” and his acting “complex” and “vulnerable”.
Sir Michael played loveable wizard Albus Dumbledore in six of the fantasy films.
Actors including Daniel Radcliffe, Jason Isaacs, Fiona Shawand James Phelps shared glowing memories of working with quadruple Bata-winning Sir Michael within hours of an announcement from his family the stage and screen giant had died in hospital aged 82 after being stricken with a bout of pneumonia.
In a statement shared with media, Radcliffe shared a fond memory of Gambon on set: “Michael Gambon could do that (mess with him) to a frustrating degree. He learned that he could, when I was a teenager, he could make me laugh very, very easily.
“Making me laugh right up until the word ‘action,’ at which point I was pretty much unable to recover and he could just snap into a performance with inherent gravitas and charm. Yeah. He’s awesome.”
The actor recalled one funny incident when Gambon and Alan Rickman, who played Snape, pranked him during the third movie, Prisoner of Azkaban.
He said: “God ... I should probably(remember) about the one that was pulled on me, rather than any I pulled. Because it came from a very unexpected place.
“There’s - in the third film - there’s a shot in the great hall of all the kids sleeping in the great hall, and the camera starts very very wide, and comes in so that it’s an inch from my face, a very long developing set, yeah, and Alan Rickman decided he would plant one of those fart machines in my, uh, sleeping bag, and they waited until like -the camera had come in for this huge DRAMATIC developing shot, and then unleashed this tremendous noise in the great hall.”
He added: “I immediately thought: ‘this is one of the other kids f***ing around, and we were going to get in trouble.”
“But as it turns out, it was one of the members of Britain’s acting royalty. I think I laughed a lot, was probably a bit embarrassed, but it was really really funny.”
Isaacs, 60, famed for playing Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise, said on X: “Magnificent Michael Gambon has died. I learned what acting could be from Michael in ‘The Singing Detective’ – complex, vulnerable and utterly human.
“The greatest thrill of being in the ‘Potter’ films was that he knew my name and shared his fearless, filthy sense of fun with me.”
Fiona Shaw, 65, who played Petunia Dursley in the films, told BBC Radio 4: “I will remember him because he was also a gun maker – he could make guns, he always said he could fool the V and A (museum) into believing that they were 18th-century guns.
“So I will think of him as a trickster, just brilliant, magnificent trickster, but with text, there was nothing like him – he could do anything.
“He took over from Richard Harris (as Albus Dumbledore) and of course, he began to mimic Richard Harris, who had recently died, and he would do his accent, the slight Irish accent.
“Which of course he always loved having an excuse to do because his family had come from Ireland, and gone to live in Camden.
“He just loved the precariousness of reality and unreality and, of course, that made him a very great actor.
“He did once say to me in a car, ‘I know I go on a lot about this and that, but actually in the end, there is only acting.’
“I think he was always pretending that he didn’t take it seriously, but he took it profoundly seriously, I think.”
James Phelps, who played Fred Weasley in the Harry Potter films, added on X: “Very sorry to hear about the passing of Michael Gambon. He was, on and off the camera, a legend.”
