Behind Eltham teen William McKenna’s incredible rise from schoolboy to Harry Potter star
Eltham teenager William McKenna has wowed theatre audiences with his performance in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — but he still doesn’t consider himself an actor. Here’s why.
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William McKenna isn’t necessarily proud that he’s never taken a formal acting class.
But anyone who has seen him in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child might be surprised that before playing Scorpius, the 19-year-old from Eltham had done nothing more than perform in a few high school drama productions.
His talent is mesmerising, his stage presence gripping and his capacity to embody a character rare indeed.
“Some people try to tell me I’m an actor,” McKenna says.
“I really don’t think I am yet. At the moment I’m just lucky. I get to go with the audience on the journey.”
It’s a journey that’s coming to an end next month when McKenna leaves the blockbuster play that’s been such a big part of his life for the past year and a half.
It will be a sad departure but he’s also looking forward to moving on from the gruelling demands of eight shows a week.
“I’m quite excited for potential new opportunities this year and to have a gap year, which I never had because I came straight from high school,” he says.
“It’s been the most wonderful year. I’ve learned a ridiculous amount about just being a human and the craft of acting but now I’m really excited about what the year might hold. I still have so much to learn. Every day of this past year has been an absolute masterclass.”
He may still be young and learning but he clearly shares a self-deprecating manner with Scorpius, the much-loved friend to Albus, Harry Potter’s troubled son, in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
It’s more than modesty. He really can’t believe he is greeted by a queue of fans after every performance of the show that’s still packing houses at the Princess Theatre a year after opening.
It’s just another moment that seems surreal for this young man who is quickly becoming a star.
While he grew up watching as many movies and TV shows as he could with his sister, friends, or just on his own, there wasn’t a strategy behind his viewing choices, just a great love for acting giving the sense film is on the horizon once he leaves the Potter fold.
“People who want to be professional footballers go to the football every week,”
he explains.
“I’ve gone to the cinema. Sometimes I would go by myself and wouldn’t tell my friends. They asked me why and I said because I really want to watch the movie and that’s all.
“I love my friends so much. There’s nothing like hanging out with them even if they’re not doing anything, just sitting and laughing. Some of my favourite moments here (in Harry) are also spent backstage with various antics and banter. I feel like I’m at home but I also like time on my own.
“My older sister Maddelin is a filmmaker and she has made short films that have been shown at some US film festivals. She has a lovely style. She and I love watching movies and TV together. That is our connection and how we get along. I watch an embarrassing amount of TV and movies.”
His parents are also artistic – his father runs his own production company and his mother performs in it as an opera singer.
“To say it was second nature to me is cliche but I wasn’t new to it,” he says.
“It was around me all my life. I started having a particular interest in acting when I was 10 or 11, thinking that acting looked like so much fun.”
When it came to shaping Scorpius, he looked to school friends for inspiration but he mostly looked within. He is not the first person to have noticed striking similarities between himself and Scorpius.
“I like to think I have better social awareness than Scorpius but I am similar to him, to a degree,” he says.
“He has a beautiful self-deprecation to him that I share and he always tries to see the best in people, which is what I loved about him. The main focus of Scorpius, and he doesn’t even know it, is kindness. That is his essence. He’s so deeply kind. I love characters like that. I really like him.”
Yet, he originally hoped to play Albus, auditioning for the lead role as Harry Potter’s son. After many call backs, producers asked him to try for Scorpius which was an easier fit — though he dons a blond wig for the role — and has earnt him widespread praise.
But his talent was noticed by professionals long before Scorpius. He won the Class Clowns competition at the 2015 Melbourne International Comedy Festival and returned the following year to host the final, which is usually done by a seasoned comedian.
MICF director Susan Provan says her fellow festival members have all been thrilled to see McKenna’s career take off.
“He just has funny bones,” Provan says. “He’s an absolute natural and it was so exciting to then see him in Harry Potter, which totally exploded his comedy chops.
“I can’t imagine someone without a natural comedic skill doing that but he just owns it.”
The trajectory from schoolboy — completing year 12 in 2018 just as rehearsals started for Harry — to star has been fast.
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He took a short break recently and went to New York, which further broadened his outlook but also gave him time to reflect on how much his life has changed since joining the company.
“It made me realise that I’m a completely different person now than I was 10 months ago,” he says.
“My maturity level has sky rocketed. I’m working with people who are three years older than me and 20 years older than me. There’s a man who’s almost 50 years older.
“My understanding of theatre has also changed since going to New York where I watched shows and could see when they were tired, or running too fast through it, or when it was just amazing.
“I was watching a show, thinking ‘This is amazing, I hope I get to do this one day’. But then I thought, ‘Hang on, I already do this. How amazing’.”
After going “surprisingly well” in his VCE, he is still keen to take those acting classes.
He says he is yet to reach the pinnacle of learning and is still just riding the wave of making his professional theatre debut.
He is a good student, whether while learning from some of Australia’s best actors in Harry Potter, or by acknowledging his school teachers.
He feels only slightly self-conscious for praising his teachers. It was the subject of his year 9 speech at Eltham College that teachers are undervalued.
“All the other kids just thought I was sucking up to the teachers but I owe a lot to them,” he says.
“They taught me my craft, how to act when someone is giving you direction. How well I did in year 12 is really testament to my amazing teachers.”
HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD, PRINCESS THEATRE.