Thomas Mitchell Barnet is still figuring out Scorpius Malfoy in ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’

“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the astonishing theatrical afterward to the book and film franchise, runs rife with magic — most of it the result of meticulously planned stagecraft. But some of the sorcery happens through the acting work of the wizards and witches onstage, including the extraordinary young performer Thomas Mitchell Barnet, who plays Scorpius Malfoy.

In my review I called Barnet’s performance star-making. He is riveting from start to finish as an awkward teenager on a journey of self-discovery. At the beginning of the play, he and Albus Potter, Harry’s son, meet on the train to Hogwarts School and become unlikely fast friends. Their time-bending adventures are the narrative backbone of “Cursed Child.”

I caught up with Barnet in mid-July to find out more about his background, creative process and inspirations — and what it’s like to play a lead role in a massive hit production.

While he comes from an Edmonton theatrical family — his father, David Barnet, taught theatre at the University of Alberta and his mother, Edith Mitchell, is an actor-turned-high school drama teacher — Barnet resisted becoming an actor:

“I knew how hard it was because my parents knew how hard it was,” he said. Seeing a production of “Our Town” in New York when he was 17 changed his mind.

“I left and felt so good and so happy … like I had a foot in the world. I just remember, it was very clear. I need to. I think I’m going to be happiest doing this.”

He trained in the acting program at Montreal’s National Theatre School and set his heart on a career in Toronto. While he misses Edmonton — the pace, the River Valley, his parents — he believed he would have more opportunities in Toronto.

Barnet’s parents support his career choice and are a major inspiration. When he finished theatre school, he took on his mother’s name as well as his father’s, to honour both of their influences on him.

Barnet acknowledged a lot of aspects of his career so far have been charmed. While still at the National Theatre School, he came to Toronto to sign with his agent on a day the Stratford Festival happened to be holding auditions. He tried out and was told he had landed a Stratford season on the day he moved to Toronto.

After two years at Stratford, he came back to Toronto in 2018 and waited tables while working in film and TV, including the recurring role of Sam Lesser on the Netflix series “Locke & Key.” He auditioned many times for the role of Albus in “Cursed Child” and then was invited, late in the casting process, to play Scorpius.

“I was one of the last people cast, so I found out a week or two before everything shut down” in March 2020 due to COVID-19.

He undertook extensive preparation for his role, delving deep into the script to explore his character. He described the rehearsal process as a dance between the things the director and creative team knew about Scorpius and the things about the part he connected with.

The creative team focused on Scorpius’s tendency toward “speaking almost before he thinks, before he considers,” said Barnet. What most interested him was the idea that Scorpius “can have such a strong moral compass and yet struggle to express it. And ultimately he does,” said Barnet.

A son of the villainous Draco Malfoy, Scorpius grew up with wealth and privilege and was secluded. He was left with a weird idea of what people are like, Barnet said. He worked on connecting this elite, lonely upbringing with the fact Scorpius is “lovely and loving and generous.”

In the play, Albus, played by Luke Kimball, and Scorpius use a time-turning device several times to go back and alter the course of history. A big part of the rehearsal process, said Barnet, was making sure everyone was on the same page about what was real and at stake in each of those possible worlds. In one of those versions of reality, which Scorpius must navigate without Albus, there are forces of evil running Hogwarts.

“I think I’m still figuring out what that’s like,” said Barnet. Scorpius “has to take the reins … he’s surprising himself. He kind of can’t believe he can keep his cool.”

Barnet said it’s wonderful the audience not only gets to see Scorpius doing heroic things, “but we also get to see him react to having done that, how he feels about himself having done that.”

Albus and Scorpius develop a deep bond and, toward the end of the play, Albus tells Harry that Scorpius is the most important person in his life. There has been much discussion among the Potter fandom about whether their relationship is a romantic one. Barnet said this was in flux in the rehearsal process.

“We were trying to find the right moment for that to come through,” he said. “It became so important to be really specific about when they are kind to each other, what does that look like? … We watch them consider just opening the door to it being romantic or something more.”

Barnet said playing this with Kimball is “terrific … because it’s just me and Luke. It’s something we get to share and that’s awesome.”

In the show, Barnet wears a platinum blond wig, which keeps him from being recognized outside the theatre. He rides the TTC home and finds himself next to audience members holding “Cursed Child” programs “all the time, every day.”

But if they start talking about the production, “I put my headphones on,” he said. “I don’t want to know.”

Taking time for himself after each show is part of his self-care routine. So is making music: he writes songs under the name Haystacks and promotes them on Bandcamp and Instagram.

When Barnet and I spoke, it had been just under a month since the show had opened and he was only starting to feel like he had his feet fully under him. “I still am learning so much,” he said.

While he relates to some of Scorpius’s qualities, such as his goofiness and eagerness to make jokes, he doesn’t share the character’s tendency toward gratitude and positivity. But he’s working on it.

“You can’t count on getting a part with this much to do, ever,” he said. “So I’m just trying to enjoy this.”

SHARE: