Harry Potter's Great British Thespians
David Thewlis as Remus Lupin, 3, 5, 7-8
The new Dark Arts Professor in Prison of Azkaban, Remus in an earlier era was a Hogwarts friend of Harry's parents, James and Lily Potter. Bitten by one of Voldemort's werewolves, he would vanish during full moons but remained a sympathetic and heroic figure. Thewlis, 47, the son of a Blackpool, Lancashire, toy merchant, came to London with a rock band but soon made more powerful sounds as an actor. He enjoyed his first success with improv director Mike Leigh: as a man who can speak only through jokes in The Short & Curlies, as a louche boyfriend in Life Is Sweet and, in a career-defining performance, as Naked's brutal, clever drifter. Thewlis brings a haunted tenderness to Lupin; he helps Harry in the boy wizard's darkest Deathly Hallows hours.