Celebrities

Miriam Margolyes on why she turned down 500K role to star in Marvel series

Miriam Margolyes on why she turned down 500K role to star in Marvel series
Miriam Margolyes has told adult 'Harry Potter' fans to grow up
Bang Showbiz / VideoElephant

Miriam Margolyes is known for her iconic responses and this includes the reason why she declined £500,000 to star in a Marvel show.

The outspoken actor was offered the opportunity to play a witch in the new TV series Agathastarring Kathryn Hahn, which is a spin-off of the TV miniseries WandaVision which starred Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany.

But ultimately, Margolyes declined the part as she didn't get the £1 million salary she requested and shared some of the details in her recent memoir Oh Miriam! Stories from an Extraordinary Life and further commented on what happened in a news.com.au interview.

“They contacted me and said, ‘we’re doing a story about witches’. I thought, ’oh god, not witches again, because I’ve done that with Harry Potter,” the 82-year-old said who played Professor Sprout in the popular film franchise.

Margolyes also wasn't a fan of the Agatha filming location either.

“I don’t like America and I didn’t want to be in Georgia for four months,” she added, and so requested the million dollar salary.

“So I just said, ’well, I want a million pounds and they said, ‘you can have half a million’, and I said, ‘no, I don’t want to do it’, so it just stopped.”

The Harry Potter actor reflected how “really it’s a story about my own greed rather than anything else.”

It's not the first TV gig Margolyes has turned down as she previously revealed that she said no to appearing on the ITV reality series I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!

“I’ve got class, love. I’m not doing that," she said on Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett’s podcast Dish.

Elsewhere, Margolyes recently made headlines for telling Harry Potter fans to "f*****g grow up."

"I worry about Harry Potter fans because they should be over that by now," she told New Zealand journalist Hilary Barry for 1 News.

"It was 25 years ago and it's for children, I think it's for children but they get stuck in it.

She continued: "I do cameos and people say 'oh, I'm having a Harry Potter-themed wedding' and I think, gosh, what's their first night of fun going to be?"

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Conversation (0)