WHET Sean Biggerstaff?

[quote]He’s also suspected to be a a covert homophobe.

Oh, please. Someone who is supposedly a Corbynite is a homophobe. Nonsense.

Correction: Someone who is supposedly a Corbynite is a homophobe?*

Sean from a few years ago, on the convention circuit (mostly talking about HARRY POTTER, predictably):

R1 doesn’t Corby support T? That’s not very LGB-friendly.

Amusing to me for some odd reason that his Potter character name in the French dub is changed to ‘Oliver Dubois’ (rather than keeping it ‘Oliver Wood’). Afaik most of the other French-dubbed Potter characters did not have alterations made to their names, so his sticks out and sounds a bit silly—though iirc Draco became ‘Drago’, Snape became ‘Rogue’, and Moody became ‘Maugrey’ in the French (but I watched the dub years ago and my French is elementary, so don’t quote me on that).

Also quite funny to consider that Biggerstaff very nearly ended up playing Percy Weasley instead—it was the other part for which he read, and the part he originally wanted as it would have given him more lines overall and would have put him in at least one other film in the franchise (Oliver Wood was only in three instalments, and in the last he appears facelessly for mere seconds).

Biggerstaff has always said that he also wanted to play Tom Riddle, as he was the stand-in for that character in table-reads, and really loved playing the villain and eating the scenery. Rickman would have been proud of that—and isn’t it weird that the heroic babyface pinup of Gryffindor was played by the favourite mentee of the face of Slytherin?

Well, IS his staff bigger?

OP What's so sad about being a Corbynite and a Scottish nationalist?

He's a fan of Corbin Fisher?

That's surprising. I saw him more of a Sean Cody type.

R7 well, extremist political positions enacted in hypocrisy tend to leave a bad taste.

Sean’s not too bad-looking for a rumpled low-level Brit actor pushing forty, though he really does need to sort his depressing hair & beard out to acquire some sparkle back. Twinks as pretty and androgynous as he was can have a hard time of ageing.

Though Sean was very cute as a young man, honestly I never personally found him sexy back in the Potter days—he seemed like he’d be ideal for holding hands, soft gazes and butterfly kisses, and long earnest discussions about morals, but nothing else. A fantasy Prince of wide-eyed little schoolgirls who still liked pretend games of magic on the playground.

Rather, the dark posh and strapping English lad who played his rival Slytherin Quidditch captain Marcus Flint was more my speed for sex appeal. The actor, Jamie Yeates, seems as soft-spoken and as good-natured as Biggerstaff, but he’s also got a bit of something intangibly naughty and wolfish about him too. Apparently and regrettably, he never acted again after the Potter movies, and even left the country shortly after, going to live and work in South Africa (doing what, I don’t know and couldn’t find out online).

Just watched CASHBACK (2006) for the Biggerstaff nostalgia, and it really...hasn’t held up at all. In fact, it wouldn’t be unfair to call it shoddy. Proof if ever there was that padding out semi-successful shorts to make feature films is always a horrid idea, even if you can get the original cast back.

Sean is gorge in it, though, so worth a watch just to enjoy how he looked as a romantic lead in his mid-twenties.

So will Biggerstaff appear or speak in this Netflix docu for the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter film?

He hasn’t done promo for it on his Twitter main, so I assume he’s not in it or wasn’t asked to be in it.

R1/R2/R7 alright, sorry, I may have been too sketchy and hasty in my condemnation, so allow me to amend slightly what I posted in OP.

From a long scroll through Biggerstaff’s social media, in terms of politics it would seem that he stands as a staunch lifelong Labourite with disdain for Far Right *and* Far Left policies, but also looks askance at Moderates/Centrism. His favourite word seems to be ‘reactionary’, and he is set against power as a reserve of the elite few. Lately, however, Sean has been expressing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party as a whole for their partisan Leftism and their self-destructive cronyism, and has called for a boycott. Not being the most well-versed in British politics, I’m not sure where that would now leave him sitting on the spectrum in the current political landscape?

It appears Biggerstaff does indeed admire Corbyn still and has for some time, and doesn’t believe the charges levied against Corbyn as an anti-Semite racist and misogynist (well, Sean’s an Xtian white man, maybe it wouldn’t matter to him), but he has also acknowledged that the man’s time in politics is probably through. The Jezza years were quite some time ago now, so I haven’t reached all the way back into the archives for Biggerstaff’s full opinion, but I’m sure it’s still there if anyone cared enough to find it and read.

As for the homophobia, in fairness what I posted in the OP about that is very old third-hand information circulated in Potter fancircles and also on DL itself—merely that, apparently, a younger Biggerstaff (say, in his mid-late twenties) would become upset or agitated by innocuous if nosy fan questions about his sexuality (in a Jensen Ackles-ish way). Which he may have a point about, as it’s quite rude to ask a stranger things like that. Online, there are at least a half dozen mentions of him reacting thus. That said, given that I haven't yet found a primary source for this, and that Sean has played two or three gay roles in his adult career without an obvious qualm, it isn't right to believe this wholesale and brand him a homophobe. Apologies for any wrong assumptions, I am shamefaced🤕

All in all, I think Sean could fit in rather well posting here (except for his championing of whatever is published in The Guardian). He certainly enjoys calling a cunt a cunt, which is an excellent trait to have, and he knows a troll when he sees one. Quite refreshing to learn of an actor under 40 with a keen intelligence who can and does think for himself.

The only thing is, he still hasn’t realised the hypocrisy of his own career in parallel to his politics. But I suppose we all have to eat and we all have to have something nice to live for, don’t we?

Odd that his career hasn’t ever taken off.

Before he was 25, he’d worked in several award-winning film and stage projects (outside of Harry Potter) with an array of glittering names in English drama: Helen Mirren, Rupert Graves, Ian McDiarmid, Emma Thompson, Charles Dance, Helen McRory, and of course Alan Rickman (thrice!), to name but a few.

Then, a couple of cult indie sleepers, an episode of Miss Marple, some student film shorts, and as of now audiobook purgatory. He has fewer than thirty IMDB credits. How? Did he just not put out enough?

Not his agent, but I will say he really deserves a bit more work than he’s getting.

Sean was an otter in his youth and as everyone knows, they's my favorites.

R15 yeah, he really was gorgeous in his youth. And in his 20s too.

Even at 28-29 he had a pretty and attractive vibe about him still. Around that age, he made for a very sexy Rabbie Burns for National Theatre 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Further to R10, with a quick scroll through LinkedIn I managed to track down Jamie Yeates.

He’s now a personal trainer and CrossFit athlete with his own gym (called ‘Shredded Active’), living and working in the Centurion municipality of Tshwane (formerly Pretoria) for the last nine or ten years.

Hope he’s alright, COVID is raging in those parts at the moment....

From Sean’s last tweets, it would appear that he has a debilitating and chronic health problem to do with his spine, which may account for why he has not worked much beyond convention appearances in recent years.

He says that his next surgery dates have been cancelled due to COVID measures. That’s unfortunate, poor fella.

He's homophobic to be sure. It might not have turned out that way, but even since Harry Potter days a lot of people assumed he was gay and he was always getting hit on by gay guys, so that probably contributed a lot to his homophobia. He doesn't criticize gay people, but he also doesn't want to be around any if he can help it. He won't become friends with a guy if he knows they are gay. That might also go back to the days when he was assumed to be gay himself.

He's a Corbynite only because he loathes Starmer. He's not for Scottish independence, but he was definitely anti-Brexit.

[quote] He doesn't criticize gay people, but he also doesn't want to be around any if he can help it. He won't become friends with a guy if he knows they are gay.

Eh? News to me.

FWIW, Sean is friends (or at least, quite friendly and in touch with) with the English actor Christian Coulson, an Out and proud gay man who acted with him in one of the HARRY POTTER films (maybe the third one? I can’t remember now) and also in a period drama series CHARLES II.

Sean may have been casually and more vocally homophobic when he was much younger, back in the early 2000s when it was more commonplace to be intolerant. Not to mention that, generally-speaking, it is extremely difficult—nigh impossible—to work in the British acting industry having anti-gay attitudes, so he wouldn’t be eating if he really believed with a passion that homosexuality is abhorrent.

[quote] since Harry Potter days a lot of people assumed he was gay and he was always getting hit on by gay guys

Taking this with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, if this is true, one has to wonder whether an unpleasant experience with a pushy bad-apple gay soured him or made him wary. Most of us are decent, but if some gross pestering lech came on to him once when he was a teen or 21-year old, that may have freaked him out. Nothing else really explains such a violent reaction from him when asked about being gay, given that his chosen politics and his profession align closely with gay rights and that he doesn’t seem religious or concerned by moral conservatism.

Awww. He was an adorable wee lad.

R21 smelling haggis?😏

R19 re. the phobia, here’s a bit of insight from the horse’s mouth, taken from a print interview Biggerstaff gave (original source missing/scrubbed) c. 2007-8:

[quote] Q: Sean, before you did the film CONSENTING ADULTS, were you aware of the laws of the time regarding homosexuality? Did anything in particular shock you about how gay people were treated?

[quote] SB: I was aware that homosexual acts were illegal in Britain in the earlier part of the 20th century. I didn't know exactly when or how that changed until I read [CONSENTING ADULTS]. I can't say that anything particularly shocked or surprised me, given that black people in the US were still being required to sit on separate benches at the time. I also - and you may find this view a little bleak - don't really feel that anything fundamental has changed. Human prejudice is alive and well and probably always will be. It just manifests itself in different ways. Anti-Americanism, working class snobbery and Diamond Car Insurance are just a few examples of how it's still socially acceptable to judge people collectively. You have to be careful not to do it to Jews, blacks, gays, women etc.

^^^^extended

[quote] Q: Did you have any reservations about taking on the role – did anyone suggest it might be a bad career move to play gay and also do a sex scene with a man?

[quote] SB: No. It wasn't an issue for me. I loved the script and was fascinated by Jeremy and that's all that I care about. Getting physical with a man wasn't exactly comfortable for me, but it's all part of the job. I'm not an Oxford fellow any more than I'm a homosexual. I'm certainly not a bloody wizard.

[quote] Q: Rupert Everett recently said on TV that gay actors in Hollywood would be better having ‘electric treatment’ rather than come out – as it would still have an adverse effect on their careers. What do you think of that?

[quote] SB: I dunno really. I have heard that. Although my admittedly limited experience of Hollywood is that about 70% of the population is gay. If that's true, I'd imagine it has more to do with marketing than institutional homophobia. They sell a lot of cinema tickets in the Bible belt.

About ten years back he got kind of built for a while, presumably deliberately done in character preparation for National Theatre Scotland’s production of the meta-comedy AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE WICKER MAN. He was really tanned, as well.

He’s back to his default pale scrawny state, now.

He shaved his head during COVID because he couldn't get in to see a barber.

R26 that really doesn’t work for him. Only a certain special contingent of males can really pull off skinhead.

His head seems to be much too big for his body. And, though not ugly, he's not as cute as he once was.

One thing's for sure. A blind man could tell he's British from a mile away. He has that stereotypical British look.

"Though Sean was very cute as a young man, honestly I never personally found him sexy back in the Potter days—he seemed like he’d be ideal for holding hands, soft gazes and butterfly kisses, and long earnest discussions about morals, but nothing else. A fantasy Prince of wide-eyed little schoolgirls who still liked pretend games of magic on the playground.

Rather, the dark posh and strapping English lad who played his rival Slytherin Quidditch captain Marcus Flint was more my speed for sex appeal."

Get a load of this bitch.

Thinks she's special,

“Why didn’t Sean Biggerstaff have a bigger career?”

This is a very easy question to answer. He does not have a giant head. Movie stars have giant heads. If your head is average sized. You will be overpowered by giant headed competition in auditions. They just look better on camera.

R30 is that really true, though? That fact always felt like a silly Hollywood myth to me.

Incredibly, he managed to have a relationship of a few years with Gaïa Weiss, that gorgeous hippie French model/actress who was on the History Channel hit show VIKINGS.

Punching, if you ask me. Why did they break up, besides the obvious?

I don't think he really wanted a "bigger career". He's been on a lot of podcasts stating that if he could go back in time, he wouldn't have become an actor. He just sort of fell into it at an early age and it's been mostly just a job to him and not something he's been passionate about.

He hated school and turns his nose up at formal education. He's very well read and highly intelligent. He's a study in contrasts, but a very interesting guy.

[quote] He's been on a lot of podcasts stating that if he could go back in time, he wouldn't have become an actor. He just sort of fell into it at an early age and it's been mostly just a job to him.

Fair enough. That does explain a lot about his career trajectory (or rather, lack thereof). Admirable if possibly unwise candour to admit such a thing publicly, when one still needs(?) the work...

There’s really no call and no pressure for him to continue further in acting, though. More than half of the younger actors who were in HARRY POTTER or other youth projects he did don’t work in performing Arts at all anymore and instead have interesting jobs in service or in activism or teaching. Why, then, if it’s “just a job” and unsatisfying to him, does *he* feel the need to carry on?

The market for Brit stage-to-screen actors under age 50 is well oversaturated as it is, so we don’t require his services from this point. Besides, to be frank he’s looking shabby and seems checked out lately, and clearly doesn’t care to seek out new opportunities to act in interesting things, so how can he expect people to support his career as fans? Unfortunately, in this day and age, the job of an actor is sadly to court the public as much as anything (it’s not right, but it’s the way it is).

I agree that he is intelligent. He ought to commit to journalism, or politics—waste of a mind, otherwise. Either that, or knuckle down to write novels and screen/plays of his own, as he’s got so very much to say. We’ve got too many bang average actors, and not nearly enough decent writers.

It’s a bit odd how sympathetic his portrayal of the courtship of Captain James/Lord Bothwell is played and written, in that 2013 French film adaptation of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig’s acclaimed biography ‘Maria Stuart’. Not to mention that Mary & James end up happy consensual lovers in the 2013 film, Bothwell is heroic and almost chivalric in his entire characterisation, and their marriage counts as a resounding success on all fronts—if one knows one’s history, this is bizarre to watch.

Isn’t it thought by most historians and scholars that the real Bothwell kidnapped and then raped Mary repeatedly in captivity, until she agreed to marry him? That’s the version that most Brits get, though perhaps they tell the story differently in France.

I mean, I understand that adaptations can be fictionalised in many respects, and that it’s difficult to put something so brutal on film, but it also does Mary a disservice to gloss over it and pretend that it didn’t happen or couldn’t possibly have happened. Even stranger that a proud Scots actor played it this way.

[quote] It’s a bit odd how sympathetic his portrayal of the courtship of Captain James/Lord Bothwell is played and written, in that 2013 French film adaptation of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig’s acclaimed biography ‘Maria Stuart’.

He has commented numerous times how much he disliked how that film turned out. When the movie Mary, Queen of Scots starring Saoirse Ronan came out in 2018 he said he was amazed at how bad it was thinking "how could it be worse than" (in his words), "that piece of shit I was in".

I have to admit that the best part of the 2013 film was Sean's nude scenes.

R36 that’s very frank of him! Refreshing that he doesn’t tiptoe around criticism like so many other actors.

Still, personally I didn’t mind the film taken as an artistic interpretation beyond historiography—if you go in not expecting too much and taking the more pretentious moments at face vale, it’s actually alright.

Seeing those nude scenes, it astounded me how much body hair Sean has. He’s got a carpeting of golden fur.

^^sorry, didn’t realise that link is broken. Here’s the images I wanted to post:

WTF R38 He looks cut. Guys born in Scotland aren't cut. There goes my fantasy of an intact Sean.

R39 yeah, weird isn’t it? DL has known for a decade, but time hasn’t made it make any more sense. And to this day no-one’s figured out why he’s cut, because he doesn’t seem to be religious or from a religious family at all.

[quote] he doesn’t seem to be religious or from a religious family at all.

He said during a Q&A at some sort of fan convention that he came from 'non-practicing Catholics'.

R41 then he’s about as Christian as my mother, which is to say not at all😅

[quote] With regard to his role as Oliver Wood, Biggerstaff was asked what it was like to be one of the older child actors on set and to return to the film series years after Chamber of Secrets. Because the films had been in production for years continuously, however, Biggerstaff said that it was like no one had ever actually left. He explained that, at one point, Rupert Grint greeted him on set without looking up – as though he had simply been there for the films in between.

Idk why this is such a funny awkward story to me😂knowing young Brit men and young Brit actors it was likely a short and unenlightening exchange, during which Sean’s IQ had no chance to shine..

“Hi y’alright mate?” “Alright, been a few years eh? How’re you keeping kid?” “Not bad bro, yourself?” “Fine yeah all good..” “Cool.” “Sweet.” “...” “...” “So yeah...” “Right, shall see you in another 5 at a one of those conventions for the Potter fan weirdos then I s’pose” “Yep probably will do! Take care buddy” “Later pal”

[quote] A blind man could tell he's British from a mile away. He has that stereotypical British look.

Yes. The look of resigned disappointment in one’s government and countrymen.

His Twatter flamewar with that crooked moron Jeff Samuels from a few months ago was epic. Sean absolutely had him on toast.

[quote] for some odd reason that his Potter character name in the French dub is changed to ‘Oliver Dubois’ (rather than keeping it ‘Oliver Wood’).

That’s nothing. In the Dutch dub, poor Marcus Flint was renamed ‘Marcus Hork’. The word ‘hork’ roughly translates in English to ‘jerk’ or ‘idiot asshole’. Typically on-the-nose from the Netherlands!

Sean's a proud Scot, nae a Brit.

R47 the British Isles haven’t sundered quite yet, though arguably and sadly it is in the pipeline. For now, he’s legally British as well as Scottish.

Back in 2018, Sean was tickled and chagrined to find himself in the conversation to play a rebooted Taggart.

Biggerstaff is a good actor and he’s certainly Glaswegian enough, but still I don’t think that casting would have worked..

His twitter account no longer exists. I wonder if he deleted it or if twitter banned him for his strong lefty politics.

R50 he’s probably still posting somewhere under an alias. Or just changed account and went private.

Anyone know if he is Team Rowling or Team HP Cast when it comes to the T issue? I presume it’s the former, but I’ve never read or heard of him speaking on it.

[Quote] he’s sadly become a Corbynite and Scottish nationalist

Nothing wrong with either, though Corbyn is exasperating sometimes, like an old annoying friend.

I would be extremely surprised if he defended JK Rowling, R52, though I haven't looked into it. He would be unlikely to be a Corbynite in good standing on Twitter and elsewhere if he did defend her.

He sounds sensible enough, so I'd say he's Team Rowling.

[quote] Sean was an otter in his youth and as everyone knows, they's my favorites

No, we didn't know that, R15.

[quote]WTF [R38] He looks cut. Guys born in Scotland aren't cut. There goes my fantasy of an intact Sean.

As long as it works, what's the problem, R39?

[quote]"how could it be worse than" (in his words), "that piece of shit I was in".

Foul-mouthed Scottish git.

[quote]Nothing wrong with either, though Corbyn is exasperating sometimes, like an old annoying friend.

"Exasperating" - interesting choice of words for a man who has lifelong associations with Jew obsessed murderers, terrorist groups, holocaust deniers, and low level anti semites. A man who took tens of thousands of pounds to host a tv show on the Iran state tv channel Press TV when gay men were being executed in Iran. He's an anti vaxxer and Putin supporter.

And Biggerstaff hates JK Rowling, like all Corbynites. Not sure he hates her as much as Jews, but it's finely balanced.

Is Biggerstaff a ratbag?

R59 true. The !ram gaffe left a horrible taste. But gays and women just matter less to the big-brained important Men of Politics I guess😕

Corbyn's brother is a lunatic who gets arrested every fortnight.

That "foul-mouthed Scottish git" is probably a mean fuck in bed, R58.

[quote] probably a mean fuck in bed

But does he do it on camera?

[quote]WHET Sean Biggerstaff?

It turned out - his staff wasn't that much bigger

[quote] His twitter account no longer exists.

Maybe he saw this thread and decided to chuck all social media.

[quote] Sean was an otter in his youth and as everyone knows, they's my favorites

No, we didn't know that.

We don't even know who you are.

He was only seventeen in Harry Potter. So I'll just say I enjoyed his performance, and that I wish he looked as fresh-faced and clean cut as he did back then.