Librarianna and the Casting of Umbridge

This weekend Matt & I bought the hot off the presses DVD of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Rabid fan of the books that I am, I really love the movies too -- it's so much fun to watch the kids grow up in "real time", and the movies just keep getting better.

The fifth movie is coming up next, and I realized I didn't know anything about it at all -- my particular brand of HP fandom involves sticking my fingers in my ears between books so as to avoid stumbling across spoilers -- but the movies are two books behind, so it's safe to snoop. My ignorance of the fifth movie just couldn't continue! I wasn't going to run off to be a librarian in the middle of the movie, though, so my date with IMDb would just have to wait til Harry and co. were safely back on the train.

So while we watched the fourth movie, Matt & I played a fun game in our ignorance of the fifth's details: we tried to cast the villain, Professor Umbridge, who is described as looking like a short & dumpy toad, and must be an English actress (to carry on the franchise's anglocentric casting tradition).

Admittedly, there aren't that many English actresses "of a certain age" left who aren't already portraying Potter profs, but I am still very pleased with myself for getting it right! Especially since Matt didn't know who I was talking about when I said "ooh, you know who'd be great?! The nurse from Shakespeare in Love ... Imelda Staunton!"

Check out Imelda Staunton's IMDb page, and the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix page too!