- Paapa Essiedu is a British actor who has stared in a range of projects
- He will play Severus Snape in HBO’s Harry Potter TV series
- He also starred in Black Mirror but who did he play?
Black Mirror star Paapa Essiedu is on the rise.
The British actor has already gathered an impressive back-catalogue of roles, starring in projects like Gangs of London, Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express and last year’s alcoholism drama The Outrun opposite Soairse Ronan.
However, his biggest project is yet to come. In early 2025, it was confirmed Essiedu will play Severus Snape in HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter TV show.
Read more: Everything we know about the Harry Potter TV show
Previously played by actor Alan Rickman in the Harry Potter movie franchise, this ethnicity-switch caused ripples in the Harry Potter fanbase. While we’re yet to see what Essiedu does with the role, based on his previous work, it’s guaranteed to be interesting.
Read more: Everything we know about Black Mirror season 7
Speaking of interesting, it’s far from the only magical character the actor has played. In 2023, he joined Charlie Brooker’s dystopian anthology series Black Mirror in a memorable role.
Need a refresher? Here’s who Essiedu played in Black Mirror.
Who did Paapa Essiedu play in Black Mirror?
Essiedu appeared in the Black Mirror season 6 episode Demon 79. It was released on Netflix in June 2023 and is still available to watch on the streamer.
Directed by Sherlock and Andor filmmaker Toby Haynes and written by Brooker and Bisha K. Ali, it was the fifth and final episode of the show’s sixth season.
It transports audiences back to England 1979. Here, a mild mannered store worker named Nida (Anjana Vasan) is at odds with her place in life and the xenophobic society she finds herself surrounded by.
Things change when she accidentally unleashes a demon named Gaap who has been trapped in a talisman she finds at work. Essiedu plays the elaborately dressed demon who only Nida can see. Once out in the world, he tells the story’s heroine that she must commit three murders in order to prevent the end of the world.
“It was originally a completely different character”
Throughout the episode, audiences are never quite sure whether Gaap is telling the truth or if his claims are typical of that of a demon designed to play with the mind of mere mortals.
Speaking about his extravagant role in the series, Essiedu told GQ that Gaap’s look was almost dramatically different.
“It was originally a completely different character,” explained Essiedu. “When I got the script, it was a manifestation of a more skinhead, punky energy, which was meant to be [Nida’s] worst nightmare — her biggest fear.”
Thankfully, after a chat with Brooker, the decision was made to make Gaap more disco-orientated.
