Tom Bonington Joins Cast of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew

As filming continues, we now have a new cast member to announce. Tom Bonington, who you may know as Farrax in season 2 of Andor. In Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, he’s playing a role that I’m sure all readers of the book will remember: Mr. Potts.

Mr. Potts is, as you’ll surely remember, one of Digory’s teachers at his school in the book.

I’m kidding, of course. Mr. Potts is a new character, created to fill a role in the film version of the story.

What might Mr. Potts’ role be?

Since Mr. Potts doesn’t exist in the book, we can only speculate based on typical narrative additions:

• A teacher or schoolmaster: Thinking about the name of the character being “Mr. Potts,” I think the use of the formal “mister” could be a strong hint that this is the role that he fills.

• A neighbor or minor adult figure: He could be an additional character that happens to be around to help with either exposition or further grounding the story. As we don’t typically have a narrator in these adaptations, there tends to be a lot of unspoken material that readers know about, but would go missing without someone to say it.

• Original story enhancement: Gerwig’s adaptation might introduce new characters to deepen the social or emotional context and Mr. Potts could fulfill such a role.

Given Tom Bonington’s work in smaller roles in Andor and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, it’s likely that Mr. Potts will be a smaller but meaningful supporting part.

However, there is another role that we think is also a possibility. The Cabby in the book… his name is Frank. We never learn his last name. Could it be that his name is Frank Potts? Could this be a total misdirect? It’s possible that when we meet Frank, the children call him Mr. Potts, as is the proper way to address someone who is older than you.

So here’s the bottom line… we don’t know how big or small of an impact this character has on the story… we just have a name and an actor. Anything any of us can do right now is speculation at best, until we know more. We could just be freaking out over nothing. If he is a brand new character, perhaps one idea is that he’s a teacher, and Digory can’t swim. Or perhaps he’s Frank. Or he could be a concerned neighbor that Polly and Digory say hello to, as he walks on by, and asks how Digory’s mom is feeling. We don’t really know.

The photo of Tom Bonington in this article is by Rachel Giddens. We claim no ownership of the photo and if she or anyone would like it removed, we will gladly comply. We are using it under fair use to comment on Tom Bonington’s casting in a movie we follow.