Why Matthew Lewis' Neville Longbottom Was Always the Hottest 'Harry Potter' Wizard
By Sarah Freymiller
Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
Casting children in roles that last for longer than three years is always a risky business. What if their teeth grow in horribly wrong? What if their acne erupts with a vengeance? And worst of all, what if their hormones transform them from sweet ten-year-olds to angry sixteen-year-olds that you still have to work with on the set every day? While we can't speak to the emotional upheavals on the set of the Harry Potter franchise, we can speak to some fan realizations: namely, Neville grew up hot! (I would like to apologize in advance for any male objectification that will take place in this article, and pledge to do my best to balance it out with other, non-physical observations.) Matthew Lewis has since moved on to other roles on television shows, and is currently playing Tower Block on BBC's Bluestone 42 , which portrays a bomb-disposal unit in Afghanistan. While many fans fondly remember him as Neville, the boy who was brave enough to stand up to his friends (and in doing so, overthrowing the whole concept of peer pressure in the wizarding world), we must reconcile that image with this new image, which is shirtless and grinding.
Really, though, it's not incredibly surprising that Neville has morphed into a sex symbol. If we read the signs correctly, we can see that, from the beginning, he was an Adonis waiting to erupt.
1. He was scrappy.
Neville, while he may have been a mouth breather, always had a spine. It was great to watch him grow into himself, to the point that he could slice a snake in half with the sword of Gryffindor. Courage is, and always will be, hot to trot.
2. He was resourceful.
Even though he thought he'd drowned Harry with some misplaced gillyweed, Neville knew his plants. A guy who's well-read in a specific intellectual niche? That's hot. And if you ever need gills, he can hook you up.
3. He was perseverant.
By the end of the series, Neville was pretty accustomed to being used as a punching bag and source of comedic relief. If there were any semi-dangerous objects or creatures in the room, Neville would be the one to draw their ire. He was like the penguin that the other penguins push off the ice flow for the killer whales. After seven years of that at school, you are whole new levels of hot. Why? You don't take yourself too seriously and you pick yourself back up when you take a tumble. Boom goes the dynamite.
I seem to have gotten a bit off-track, here. I apologize for not focusing more on Lewis' defined cheek bones and carved abs. I just can't objectify people these days without getting into the intangible qualities that make them glow upon entering the room. Maybe it's because I had headgear for six months, but I truly appreciate the underdog adolescence story. Neville Longbottom, thank you for growing up hot, both in the physical and psychological sense.