Aidan Close (right), as Scorpius Malfoy, and Emmet Smith, as Albus Potter, in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. Matthew Murphy

From Hogwarts, with Gratitude

Aidan Close (’23) feels lucky to be making Broadway magic as Scorpius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

For Close, Scorpius’ sentiment in that moment mirrors his own gratitude. Two years after graduating from BU, he has the opportunity to reinvent a key role in the top-grossing production currently on Broadway.

“What a gift Jack Thorne, who wrote the play, gave me, to be able to say those words. And they’re never empty. Those words always mean something,” says Close, who joined Cursed Child on Broadway in November 2025 following a run with the inaugural touring cast. “Harry Potter is a sacred mythos that so many people ascribe to, and [this show] combines that with the sacredness of theater. Man, that moment encapsulates it all.”

CFA spoke with Close about his time at CFA’s School of Theatre, getting stabbed onstage, and the backstory of Scorpius Malfoy, a character who first appeared onstage in London’s West End for Cursed Child’s world premiere in 2016.

When did you fall in love with the theater?

When I was seven, I started doing this youth Shakespeare group. As a kid doing Shakespeare, that basically means you’re playing during rehearsal, and for the performances we’d have a couple lines.

I really liked stage combat. When I was nine, I was given an actual part as Prince Edward in Henry VI. It was really cool, because I got to do quarterstaff fights and get stabbed onstage three times, by three different people. You can see it on YouTube, and in the clip I am very clearly enjoying it.

During my first week in college, theater became an intoxicating, fiery obsession. The students were as intoxicated as I was in the work. That spark burned me out, however, and then COVID hit. I had to go back home to Maine, and the next three years were lessons in letting it be easy and joyous and less pressurized.

Describe the process of becoming Scorpius, from auditions for the tour to the Broadway stage.

The audition arc [for the tour] was long: I was in callbacks for Albus through six or seven rounds, doing everything from devising movement to scene work. [Director] John Tiffany then asked why I was being seen for Albus rather than Scorpius, and that questioning changed the trajectory. Two days after a last-minute Scorpius audition, I got a call in the back of a café and a voice I couldn’t place asked me to “guess which of the two boys I got.” That’s how I landed the part that changed my life.

On the tour we had an intense rehearsal process: months learning character, making choices, and being incubated by the creative team. We were creating something new and allowed to invent our Scorpius rather than replicate an earlier take. I didn’t watch the established production before or during rehearsal; I went on instinct and built the role from the text and the books.

Later, when a Broadway opportunity arose, there was an emotional complexity—joy mixed with grief for the family I’d made on tour that I was now leaving. Finding out I was joining the Broadway company felt casual on the surface—an email in my inbox—so it took a while to understand its profundity. A single email represented the closure of one chapter and a beginning of another, a chance to carry the hard-won lessons and meaningful relationships I had on tour to Broadway, which was so unknown and terrifying to me.

Who is Scorpius Malfoy?

Scorpius is the humor of the show, the heart and the moral compass all wrapped into one. He hides pain with humor and hides sweetness with insecurity. There’s a richness to him: he’s an incredibly lonely kid because of a rumor that surrounds him. I imagine his childhood as largely secluded with nobody but his books and his mom, who is sick and requires constant care.

I also imagine him having read the literary Harry Potter series front to back—devouring, color-coding, annotating—and so I did the same, a thoroughness that helped me feel him. He’s a mirror for a lot of people in the audience who need to see a figure who is kind, complicated, and striving toward connection.

What is your routine the day of a show?

My body and voice need rest, [so] I usually see a friend or work on a project earlier in the day. I make dinner, catch the train, listen to music—that last bit of Aidan-specific time. I arrive at the theater around 5:30, then we have warm-up for 10 to 15 minutes, safety calls, and then I get into my wig and costume. I have a ritual: play Vivaldi, write a memory of Scorpius’s childhood on a sticky note for the show, and put it on the wall. On tour, by the end of an engagement in a city, it’s a wall of notes. Then final warm-ups (which fittingly take place under a staircase) and mic check, Emmet and I share an intention for the show, and then we board our train for the journey.

You and Emmet Smith, who plays Albus, started out together on the touring production, and now you’re both playing opposite megastar Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films and plays him as an adult in Cursed Child.

I want to reiterate how wonderful the group I’m surrounded by is. Last night’s show was tough, and around 1 am Tom called me. We chatted for 40 minutes, and he wanted to make sure I was okay. Harry Potter wasn’t my bible as it is for many people, so Tom gets to just be a person, a mentor to me, instead of the icon. Emmet has held me down through this process; he has kept me balanced, focused, and laughing. The company on tour and on Broadway really feels like lightning striking twice, which is a gift in this industry. I feel so lucky.