If you’re watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and then jump straight to The Deathly Hallows, you might notice something feels slightly off when the camera pans to the Gringotts tellers. It’s not just the aging CGI or the higher stakes. The question of who plays the goblin in Harry Potter is actually way more complicated than a single name on a casting call.
Most fans think of Griphook first. Honestly, he’s the only goblin with a real character arc. But the face you see in 2001 isn't exactly the same one you see in 2011, even though the voice stays the same. It’s a bit of a Hollywood shell game involving prosthetics, voice acting, and a mid-series recast that many people totally missed.
The Griphook Evolution: Warwick Davis and Beyond
When Harry first walks into Gringotts, he meets a sharp-featured goblin who leads him to Vault 687. That’s Griphook. In that first movie, the physical performance—the guy in the makeup—was actually Verne Troyer. You probably know him as Mini-Me from Austin Powers. Troyer brought a specific, rigid physicality to the role that made the goblins feel truly non-human.
But there’s a catch.
Troyer’s American accent didn't fit the vibe of Diagon Alley. So, the producers brought in Warwick Davis to provide the voice. Davis was already on set playing Professor Flitwick, so it was an easy fix. For years, Griphook was essentially a hybrid human.
By the time The Deathly Hallows rolled around, the role of Griphook expanded. He wasn't just a bank teller anymore; he was a cynical survivor negotiating for the Sword of Gryffindor. At this point, Warwick Davis took over the role entirely—both the physical acting and the voice. If you look closely, the Griphook in the later films has much more expressive facial movements because Davis was acting through the silicone, rather than just dubbing over someone else’s performance.
🔗 Read more: Shamea Morton and the Real Housewives of Atlanta: What Really Happened to Her Peach
Davis is a legend for a reason. He’s one of the few actors who can claim they played three distinct characters in the same franchise: Griphook, Professor Filius Flitwick, and that unnamed, grumpy Gringotts employee in the first film who Harry hands his key to.
Beyond Griphook: Who Else Went Under the Silicone?
Gringotts is a big place. It needs a lot of staff. While Griphook gets the lines, the background is filled with actors who spent hours in the makeup chair.
Deep Roy is a name you might recognize. He played every single Oompa Loompa in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He also played a Gringotts goblin. The sheer amount of work that goes into these background roles is wild. We’re talking about four to six hours in a chair before the cameras even start rolling.
Then there is Rusty Goffe. He is a veteran performer who played several goblins across the series. He was one of the original Oompa Loompas in the 1971 Willy Wonka film, which gives him a sort of "fantasy royalty" status. In The Sorcerer's Stone, he's one of the lead bank tellers. Goffe has often talked about how hot and restrictive those masks were. You can’t really breathe, you can’t eat, and you’re basically sweating off your glue for twelve hours a day.
It wasn't just about finding short actors. It was about finding actors who could convey emotion through layers of heavy latex.
💡 You might also like: Who is Really in the Enola Holmes 2 Cast? A Look at the Faces Behind the Mystery
The Bogrod Recast and Why it Matters
Remember the goblin who gets hit with the Imperio curse during the Gringotts heist? That’s Bogrod. He’s played by Jon Key.
Key’s performance is actually heartbreaking if you think about it. He’s playing a character who has lost his free will and is being forced to help the people robbing his own bank. In the books, Bogrod eventually meets a grim end by dragon fire, but in the movies, he’s just sort of left behind in the chaos.
The makeup for Bogrod was designed to look older and more "institutional" than Griphook. The design team at Leavesden Studios wanted the goblins to look like they were part of different families or castes. Some have long, pointed noses; others have flatter, more bat-like features. It's this attention to detail that makes the question of who plays the goblin in Harry Potter so interesting—it's not a monolith. It was a massive community of actors from the UK’s dwarfism community.
The Practical Magic of Goblin Makeup
Nick Dudman was the man in charge of the creature effects. He didn't want the goblins to look like cartoons. He wanted them to look like grumpy accountants who happened to have pointed ears.
- Each mask was made of foam latex or silicone.
- The hair was punched in one strand at a time.
- The dentures were custom-fitted so the actors could actually speak clearly.
- Contact lenses were used to give them that glassy, slightly inhuman stare.
When Warwick Davis took over Griphook fully, the makeup had to be redesigned. They needed a version that allowed his eyes to do the heavy lifting. In the final films, Griphook is much more "human" in his expressions because the plot required us to see his betrayal coming. You can see the greed in his eyes. That's not CGI; that's Davis working through the mask.
📖 Related: Priyanka Chopra Latest Movies: Why Her 2026 Slate Is Riskier Than You Think
The Legacy of the Gringotts Cast
The production actually hired dozens of actors for the Gringotts scenes. For the final film, they did a massive casting call to fill the bank for the scene where the trio uses Polyjuice Potion to break in. It was one of the largest gatherings of actors with dwarfism in cinematic history.
Many of these performers, like Mike Edmonds (who was also in Star Wars and Time Bandits), brought decades of experience to the set. They weren't just "extras." They were specialized performers who understood how to work with heavy prosthetics.
It’s easy to focus on Daniel Radcliffe or Emma Watson, but the world of Harry Potter would feel empty without the grumpy, gold-obsessed tellers. The actors who played them had to endure incredible physical discomfort to bring that specific "Wizarding World" bureaucracy to life.
If you really want to dive into the history of these actors, check out Warwick Davis’s autobiography Size Matters Not. He goes into great detail about the transition from Flitwick to Griphook and what it was like to basically be the "head goblin" on set. He acted as a bridge between the directors and the other small-stature actors, ensuring everyone was treated fairly during those long, grueling makeup sessions.
Next Steps for Fans and Researchers
To get the full picture of how these characters were brought to life, you should look into the "Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter." They have an entire section dedicated to the Gringotts set, where you can see the actual prosthetic masks used by Jon Key and Warwick Davis. Seeing the masks up close reveals the tiny veins and pores that the camera often misses. Also, keep an eye on the credits of the first film versus the last—it’s a fascinating roadmap of how the casting evolved as the series grew more mature and the goblin characters became more central to the plot.