Neville Longbottom spin-off, anyone?
Of course Matthew Lewis—who played Harry Potter's awkward but kindhearted and ultimately full-on heroic fellow Gryffindor in the seven-film franchise—has been asked about the prospect.
"If it came to it that I was offered that sort of deal—I want to say I'd consider it—but I'd probably jump at the chance, absolutely!" Lewis, who was 12 when he first played Neville in 2001's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, told RadioTimes.com in 2015. "I'm not itching, just yet, but I'd absolutely, definitely consider it, and love to be considered for it."
At the time, however, he was looking forward to seeing the planned spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and not have to see himself onscreen.
"One of the things that ruined all the films for me was that I had to watch myself in them—it was a nightmare," the actor from Leeds, in West Yorkshire, said. "But I can go to watch the new films without any kind of fear of my own performance."
The J.K. Rowling-created world may have gone in a different direction since, but so did Lewis, who within a few years after the final Harry Potter film came out in 2011 was transfixing audiences in a new way, no magic required.
"It's definitely not something that I'm comfortable with," Lewis told Bustle in 2016 about the Internet having deemed him a bit of a sex symbol.
"I never wanted to put myself in the limelight as any kind of attractive actor or heartthrob or whatever," he said. "It was never something I saw myself as, and I still don't."
Alas, such is the way the wand crumbles, especially when the shirtless pics start making the rounds.
But Lewis knows he's not alone (truly, as he still considers Emma Watson, Tom Felton and other cast mates his good friends) amid the pack of child stars who got their big break in the Harry Potter films and proceeded to grow up in the spotlight.
Lewis is celebrating his 31st birthday today, so we're checking in with Dumbledore's Army, the misguided Slytherins and assorted Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and visitors to Hogwarts in his honor:
Happily, it seems as if these all-grown-up Harry Potter stars are making their way in the Muggle world just fine these days.
Lewis said on the Mantality podcast this year that his growing-up experience was actually "relatively normal, to be totally honest," though he knew some of his co-stars could tell a different story.
"I was very, very fortunate and I don't know if it's a Leeds thing, a Yorkshire thing—maybe I was just lucky—my mates in the school that I went to, they didn't really give a s--t," Lewis recalled. "I went away for months at a time and when I came back, people barely even kinda bat an eyelid. I just suddenly was on the bus one morning...and just crack on with it."
Lewis said on the Mantality podcast this year that his growing-up experience was actually "relatively normal, to be totally honest," though he knew some of his co-stars could tell a different story.
"I was very, very fortunate and I don't know if it's a Leeds thing, a Yorkshire thing—maybe I was just lucky—my mates in the school that I went to, they didn't really give a s--t," Lewis recalled. "I went away for months at a time and when I came back, people barely even kinda bat an eyelid. I just suddenly was on the bus one morning...and just crack on with it."
He still hangs out with a lot of those old mates, too, when he's in town.
"It was kind of, just, really normal," Lewis concluded, "which I think has really helped later on in life...I don't feel like I ever lost my childhood like a lot of young actors do."
And the perks of having been a part of Harry Potter aren't bad, he acknowledged. "Fame comes with pros and cons," he said. "...You can't take one without the other. If I want to enjoy all the things that come with being recognizable—and I do, I do those things, I can't deny that—then you have to deal with the flip side, is that people want to meet you and talk to you and take pictures with you."
But being a film and TV buff himself, and having been treated both shabbily and warmly by other actors whom he admires, Lewis has decided he won't be the guy to ruin a Harry Potter fan's day. "I think there's no excuse to be a dickhead," he said. "If someone's a genuine fan who just wants to say hello, that's amazing! So many people on this planet would give their right arm to have that kind of respect for something you've done in a profession. How hard is it to just say hello?"