Harry Potter star who filmed in Edinburgh brands Scotland 'most beautiful country'

Ian Hart as Professor Euan Rossi in Shetland
-Credit: (Image: Daily Record/ BBC)


A Harry Potter star has returned to Scotland to film for a hit BBC drama.

Known for playing the two-faced Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Ian Hart, 60, is taking on the new role of Professor Euan Rossi in Shetland.

The actor has returned to Scotland to film on the island and has spoken out about how different the two roles are.

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Speaking to the Record, the Last Kingdom actor said: “They’re very different professors aren’t they? Very different indeed. It’s not the simplistic thing of fantasy versus reality. It’s more than that. There’s a certain heightened, stylistic space that the Potter World occupies whereas Shetland is far more real.

“This is a series which feels so grounded, so much part of that landscape and that life, that it kind of grounds everything else that goes along with it. Essentially all stories when you take them out of their context are just far-fetched nonsense but by grounding it the way they do in the location of Shetland, you accept that it represents reality far more than a magician.

“Oddly enough, statistically speaking, Shetland has the lowest crime rate of anywhere in the whole of the United Kingdom and yet, you buy it straight away that these things can happen there.”

Hart said he has filmed 'quite a lot' in Scotland over the course of his career, with most of it being in Edinburgh or Glasgow. However he enjoys filming outside of the cities - apart from the midgies.

Ian, who grew up in Liverpool, added: “I’ve filmed in Scotland quite a lot over the years. With Harry Potter we visited a ruin somewhere I remember! But for the bulk of my career, being in Scotland has meant Glasgow or Edinburgh really. Although we did film up in the Highlands for Mary Queen of Scots.

“It’s nice to get beyond the cities until you get eaten by midgies in the Cairngorms – there’s about eight million biting insects wanting to eat you. They bite the horses you’re filming with and then the horses go crackers and then someone in the crew says “can you just stand still next to the horse?” and you think “not really, mate, the horse is going nuts because it’s getting bitten!”

"But Scotland is beautiful, you can’t find a more beautiful country, I think.”