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Harry Potter star Josh Herdman unrecognisable after career switch
With the emotional Harry Potter 20-year reunion airing on BINGE this weekend, many of us were likely left in tears and were reminded of just how much we watched the cast grow up on screen over the eight-film franchise.
And while viewers got to see some of the series' biggest names including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Tom Felton and Matthew Lewis return, there were a couple of characters we didn't see.
One of them was actor Josh Herdman, aka Draco’s thuggish sidekick Gregory Goyle, who is almost unrecognisable after making a considerable career switch post Potter.
Josh has now turned his hand to cage fighting and is an MMA fighter, winning his first bout in 2016.
He looks completely different from his days taunting fellow students at Hogwarts, now sporting plenty of ink, and a chiselled physique from five years of training in Jujutsu.
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"I chose MMA because I love the sport. It’s raw, exciting and unpredictable," Josh told media at the time.
"You need a discipline, you need tenacity and you need a drive to keep at it."
Now aged 34, he is also dad to two sons he shares with partner Jessica.
He still frequently appears at Harry Potter conventions around the world and takes the occasional acting role including a role in Marcella and the recent ITV drama White House Farm.
"I haven't fallen out of love with it, I still have an agent and still go for auditions. It's just a little bit like playing the lottery for a living," he told The Mirror.
The Harry Potter reunion special 'Return to Hogwarts' provided plenty of nostalgic moments for fans, as well as a few other surprises.
For example prior to filming Order of the Phoenix, Emma Watson shared that she almost walked away from the franchise, explaining that she started feeling “lonely” in her fame. In conversation with Rupert Grint, she recalled feeling like her fame had reached a “tipping point,” and she realised her life as Hermione was “forever now.”
“The fame thing kind of hit me in a big way,” she remembered.
Ultimately, it was the encouragement of the fans and her cast and crew that made her realise she wanted to continue on in the wizarding journey.
Meanwhile, Daniel Radcliffe admitted that he was “an absolute dick” about Emma and Rupert's first on-screen kiss as Ron and Hermione, because he kept joking with his already nervous friends that he was going to “come on set and watch you guys kiss.”
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