“Harry Potter” star Miriam Margolyes: “Not to live long”

Miriam Margolyes doesn’t have much time. The actress told “The Times” that she would “probably die within the next five or six years”. “If not before,” said Margolyes. Precisely because she will not live long, she doesn’t want to give up acting. “It is such a joy,” she told the newspaper about her profession. Miriam Margolyes became known in the “Harry Potter” films through her role as herbalist Pomona Sprout.

The British-Australian actress would like to play roles in which she is not tied to a wheelchair in the years that she still stays. But she was “just not strong,” she said the “Times”.

It is not the first time that Miriam Margolyes talks about her health. In 2023 she revealed that she had to undergo heart surgery. “I have the heart of a cow now,” she joked at the time. And then made it clear: “Well, not the whole heart, but an aortic flap was replaced by the aortic flap of a cow.”

Already last year, she told the fear of dying “within the next five or six years”.

In addition to her heart problems, Miriam Margolyes also suffers from spinal canal stenosis. Because of this narrowing of the spine canal, it is dependent on the wheelchair. “I can’t go very well and I am registered as disabled,” she said in the summer of 2024 to the magazine “Closer”.

Before she reached a new viewer with “Harry Potter”, Miriam Margolyes made a name for herself in the English cult comedy “Blackadder”. She was nominated for a BAFTA Award for her supporting role in Martin Scorseses’ costume drama “Zeit der Innocence”. After “Harry Potter” she played recurring parts in the series “Miss Fisher’s mysterious murder cases” and “Call the Midwife”.