Harry Melling (actor)

Harry Edward Melling (born 17 March 1989) is an English actor known for playing Dudley Dursley in five Harry Potter films and Harry Beltik in The Queen's Gambit. His grandfather was actor Patrick Troughton.

Early life
Harry Edward Melling was born on 17 March 1989 in London, England. He studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Career
In his early career, Melling performed in stage productions of The Provoked Wife, King John, Antigone, and Plenty. He appeared in five of the Harry Potter films as Harry Potter's spoiled cousin, Dudley Dursley. He was first cast in the role at age 10, in 1999, and played the character until 2010 and his appearance in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.

In 2009, Melling starred in a revival of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Royal National Theatre. He appeared in "The Sorcerer's Shadow", an episode of the BBC television series Merlin, playing a young warlock who intends to use magic to help him win Camelot's legendary tournament. He also played Robert Brown in the BBC television series Just William. In 2009, it was announced that Melling had lost so much weight since his last appearance in Harry Potter that he was now "unrecognisable". The role of Dudley was almost recast for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, but Melling was able to reprise the part by wearing a fat suit. He said of the change, "I can now shed the child actor thing, like the fat, and start a new career, because no one sees me as Dudley."

In 2014, Melling made his playwriting debut at HighTide Festival with his one-man show Peddling.

In 2018, Melling starred alongside Liam Neeson in the Coen brothers' Western The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Of Melling's performance, New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane wrote: "[I] came away haunted by a scattering of sights and sounds—above all, by the recitations of the limbless man, which thrum with genuine yearning. He is beautifully played, with a little help from C.G.I., by Harry Melling, who was once the odious Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films. Funny how people grow up."

In 2020, Melling played evangelical preacher Roy Laferty in the Netflix thriller The Devil All The Time. That same year, he appeared in the Netflix series drama The Queen's Gambit as Harry Beltik, a chess player, friend, and competitor of Beth's in Kentucky.

Melling appeared in a Coen brothers film a second time as Malcolm in The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021).

In 2022, he had a starring role as a young Edgar Allan Poe in the film The Pale Blue Eye.

In May 2024, it was announced that Melling would be starring alongside Alexander Skarsgard in Pillion, a romantic comedy produced by Element Pictures.