Hero Fiennes Tiffin is easily recognized for playing Hardin Scott in the After series, but fans may be surprised to learn he was in Harry Potter too.
Hero Fiennes Tiffin is known for starring in After as Hardin Scott, a mysterious senior who grabs the attention of freshman Tessa Young, played by Josephine Langford. But this isn’t his first role on the big screen, he also appeared in a Harry Potter movie as a young Voldemort.
He has a close connection to the franchise, as well as playing a key role in a flashback. He is part of the Fiennes acting family. His uncle is Lord Voldemort himself, Ralph Fiennes and his other uncle is Joseph Fiennes, who plays Commander Fred Waterford in The Handmaid’s Tale. His mom is a film director, writer, and producer. His dad is a writer and filmmaker.
Despite his famous family, he grew up very grounded. “My uncles are always busy away acting, so I barely even see them much at all, but I always know that they are so supportive,” he says.
“Anytime I do see them, they always check up on it and make sure everything’s okay and let me know that they’re there for me. But I don’t see them very much so when I do we tend to just talk about family stuff more than anything.”
How Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s Acting Career Began
Before he started his acting career, Hero Fiennes Tiffin worked jobs as a landscaper and caterer. He made his first film appearance as Spartak in the 2008 drama film Bigga Than Ben.
Since his first role in Bigga Than Ben, he’s appeared in shows like The Tunnel, Safe and Cleaning Up, and the film The Silencing. He was also featured in a 2017 short film from Erdem and H&M called The Secret Life of Flowers.
Who Did Hero Fiennes Tiffin Play In Harry Potter?
Hero Fiennes Tiffin played the young version of Tom Riddle in the sixth Harry Potter movie, the boy who would eventually grow into Voldemort (played by his uncle Ralph Fiennes). He appears in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince when Michael Gambon’s Albus Dumbledore goes to visit him at the orphanage in a revisited memory.
“It was cool, it felt more like a one-off fun experience than a potential career choice when I was doing it,” he explained at the small role in the classic franchise. “I was sold by the days off school more than anything.”
The role didn’t inspire Fiennes Tiffin’s dreams of stardom and a career in the industry. “I remember it being really fun at the time, but wanting to have a normal childhood when I came back and had to catch up,” he explains. “Wanting to act was a gradual thing for me after that.”
Whilst people believed he only landed the role due to his famous family, he did actually beat thousands of actors to the role.
Director David Yates explained that Fiennes Tiffin was cast due to his ability to find “the darker space” in his line readings. It was helpful he looked like a young Fiennes, but it was the main reason why.
Yates described Fiennes Tiffin as “very focused and disciplined” and said he “got the corners and dark moods and odd spirit of the character” as well as having a “wonderful haunted quality that seemed to bring Tom Riddle alive on-screen for us”.
How Hero Fiennes Tiffin Feels About Playing Hardin In The After Series
Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s first lead role was in After as Hardin, so he prepared as much as he could for a career-changing project. “It’s the kind of thing that, as an actor, you look forward to eventually and you wait on it, then when it comes around, you question whether you’re ready or not,” he says of taking on the starring role. “It’s just one of those things you have to jump in the deep end and go ahead and do it. I just prepped as much as I possibly could.”
The original After book series, which spans 5 novels, is based on Harry Styles fanfiction, but the movie puts distance between his character Hardin and the original inspiration.
“I feel like the character is so separate from that now and is his own thing,” Fiennes Tiffin explained. “I don’t actually know anything about Harry Styles in terms of how he is, I felt no need to delve into those aspects. The original source of inspiration was drawn from him, but I don’t think we’re by any means trying to duplicate his life or anything. It’s very much a separate story with a separate character.”
Though the actor didn’t base his character on Styles, he did meet him once at the 2019 Met Gala. While the pair didn’t talk about After, Fiennes Tiffin thinks that the singer gave him a “knowing look.”
“I shook his hand, and there was a kind of thing,” Fiennes Tiffin explained. “We didn’t have the opportunity to talk because it was at the entrance, and it was quite full, but I feel like there was a little thing in the eyes of, like, we both knew. There was a knowing look. I haven’t spoken to him in detail about it. I hope that happens sometime.”
What Hero Fiennes Tiffin Is Doing Now
Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s career is going from strength to strength.
The fifth installment of the After series, After Everything is set to be released in September 2023. Although it’s the final instalment of Hardin and Tessa’s story, prequels and sequels are in development.
In May 2022 he joined the cast of the action thriller The Climb, based on the real-life 2013 Greenpeace protest where activists illegally scaled The Shard in London in objection to Arctic oil drilling. He is also set to appear in Guy Ritchie’s upcoming WWII film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare alongside Henry Cavill and Eiza Gonzalez.
He will also star in Come As You Are, a thriller about a young woman whose life goes off the deep end when her social media career takes her down a dark path. It’s set to star Fiennes Tiffin alongside Sophie Turner and Taylor John Smith.
