The Real Reason Harry Potter’s Eyes Have A Different Color In The Movies

If you’re a longtime fan of the “Harry Potter” books, I’m gonna need you to name all of Harry’s major physical characteristics … which should be an easy ask, because series author Joanne Kathleen Rowling (who styles her name as J.K. Rowling) is constantly talking about them. He has very dark black hair, a lightning bolt scar on his forehead, wears round glasses, is relatively skinny and gawky, and he has green eyes. That last thing is really, really important; Harry’s eyes, which look just like those of his late mother Lily Potter, are vital to the overall story. So why does Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter in the film franchise that came out between 2001 and 2011, have obviously blue eyes throughout the popular movies?

In an issue of Empire Magazine that commemorated the franchise’s 20th anniversary in 2021, “Harry Potter” producer David Heyman cleared up the issue of Harry’s canonically green eyes … and why Radcliffe’s natural blue eyes are prominently featured in the films. “I’ll never forget being on set that first day, filming the last scene of ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ where Hagrid and Harry bid farewell at the railway station at Hogsmeade,” Heyman said, referring to the first film in the franchise which is also called “Sorcerer’s Stone” in the United States (via Winter is Coming).

“Dan [Radcliffe] was wearing these contact lenses to make his eyes green, and he had an allergic reaction to them. His eyes were red and swollen and we had to take them out — we thought we may add that green digitally, though ultimately we decided not to because it felt artificial,” he continued. The puffiness and redness made sense for him to say goodbye to Hagrid [the Hogwarts groundskeeper played by Robbie Coltrane], but the crew wasn’t about to torment a child actor with contacts.

Incredibly, the contact lenses intended to turn Daniel Radcliffe’s eye color into a greener hue weren’t the only things that caused a problem with the young actor while he filmed “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (which, again, is called “Philosopher’s Stone” in international markets). A special feature on the Blu-ray and DVD version of the franchise’s final film, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2,” features Radcliffe sitting down with Joanne Kathleen Rowling to discuss a surprising difficulty he experienced during the production of the first movie.

“It was brilliant because we put the glasses on and eventually we realized that I was allergic to them,” Radcliffe said (via ABC News). “I was actually allergic to the ‘Harry Potter’ glasses. Because I had these two rings of whiteheads and spots that had come up around my eyes and it took us a week to realize that it was actually the glasses.” Incredibly, Radcliffe was experiencing an allergy to nickel, a fact later confirmed by an article on the official “Harry Potter” website about things you might have missed in the first movie, so the glasses were remade in a material that wouldn’t bother Radcliffe’s skin. Once that was all settled, Radcliffe ultimately went through a whopping 160 pairs of glasses during the decade he spent filming the movies — a detail clarified by The Hollywood Reporter in 2011 — and after the movies were finished, Radcliffe said he was ready to take a break from that particular spectacle style. “It’s gonna be contacts or like triangular glasses or something just to really put some distance,” Radcliffe told MTV News (via Entertainment Weekly) in 2014 after the films concluded their run.

With all due respect to Daniel Radcliffe, an actor whom I admire immensely, it is sort of distracting for diehard “Harry Potter” fans for the character to have extremely blue eyes for the entire film franchise. Here’s why. Harry’s eyes are one of the defining aspects of his physicality, but they’re also his mother Lily’s legacy; anyone who knew Lily before she was murdered by the Dark Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes in the movies) and encounters Harry in the books points out that his eyes are almost identical to Lily’s. This comes into play in a big way when we learn the truth about Hogwarts’ Potions master and former Voldemort follower Severus Snape — portrayed by the late, great Alan Rickman in the movies — and his love for Lily.

See, Snape might act like he hates Harry — and on some level, he probably does! — but his love for Lily is what drives him to protect Harry during the young wizard’s time at Hogwarts, and Harry’s eyes serve as a reminder of the woman that Snape loved and lost. In the book version of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Voldemort murders Snape in an ill-conceived effort to claim control of the powerful Elder Wand, and as Snape lies dying, Harry approaches him; Snape insists that Harry look at him as he bequeaths his vital memories to the boy he always seemed to despise, and that’s probably so Snape can see a version of the eyes he loved one last time. Harry’s green eyes are important in the books, but at the end of the day, poor Daniel Radcliffe’s eyes suffered enough trying to make that concept work.

The “Harry Potter” movies are streaming on Peacock, and Radcliffe has blue eyes in all of them.