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"Jack Whitehall has revealed that he auditioned to be Harry Potter. The actor, who would have been around 12 when Harry Potter and the Philosopher&amp;#039;s Stone went into production, told ShortList that he was a big fan of the books.   &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t get past the first audition,&amp;quot; Whitehall said of his Potter audition. &amp;quot;I had read those books and I was a big fan. &amp;quot;In fact, my mum got a first-edition Harry Potter book signed by JK Rowling when [Rowling] was trying to flog it in our local church, before the series took off. It&amp;#039;s probably worth quite a lot of money now. &amp;quot; The comedian also revealed that he had read for a role in The Hobbit.   &amp;quot;I was the first person in the world to audition for The Hobbit. The casting director told me that when I went in,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a lot of pressure, isn&amp;#039;t it? The first person in the world. That&amp;#039;s probably why I f**ked the audition up.&amp;quot; Asked what part he was going for, Whitehall laughed: &amp;quot;An elf, I think. No, a hobbit. One of the &amp;#039;dwarfy&amp;#039; ones. I haven&amp;#039;t read the book.&amp;quot; Watch Jack Whitehall chat to Digital Spy below:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/harry-potter/news/a440010/jack-whitehall-i-auditioned-to-be-harry-potter/>