The Ridiculous Amount Of Glasses Harry Potter Went Through In All The Movies

Spanning eight installments, the Harry Potter film franchise created many props, including Harry’s iconic glasses, which required an obscene number of pairs throughout the filming of the eight movies. One of Harry Potter‘s major successes is the attention to detail in its props, practical effects, and distinct character wardrobes that adjust with each movie alongside the magical beings and their actors. For instance, each Harry Potter character’s personalized wands, the goblins’ impressive prosthetics, and the lifelike handcrafted foods for the Great Hall feasts all confirm how important even the smallest of details were to the film franchise’s prosperity.

With wardrobe, the Harry Potter franchise effectively utilized evolving clothes to accompany the characters’ and actors’ growth throughout the story. For example, Hermione’s Yule Ball dress was the first time attention was really drawn to her growing up. Other pieces represented character traits or became identifiers, with one piece of apparel becoming eternally associated with Daniel Radcliffe’s wizard. Harry’s eyeglasses became a universal visual marker of his character throughout the eight films. Despite only being worn by Harry, the franchise’s production managed to go through a humorous number of duplicates of the famous wizard’s glasses.

Daniel Radcliffe Went Through 160 Eyeglasses In The Harry Potter Movies

According to THR, Daniel Radcliffe went through 160 pairs of eyeglasses while filming the Harry Potter movies. Most obviously, numerous pairs were needed because Radcliffe was only 12 years old during the first film, so naturally he outgrew a fair share of them as the franchise continued. There’s also the possibility that mundane everyday mishaps required multiple glasses to be on standby, such as breaking during filming or misplacing a few pairs. Radcliffe shared in a Hot Ones (via Seventeen) interview that he didn’t break as many eyeglasses as he did wands, suggesting other reasons for numerous pairs may have been more likely than breakages.

In fact, Radcliffe also revealed that during the filming for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone he discovered he was allergic to the nickel in the glasses’ rims (via ABC News). Naturally, these had to be replaced with a material his skin wouldn’t react to because the glasses were an integral part of his character. Moreover, some versions of Harry’s glasses didn’t include lenses to avoid camera reflections in them (via Wired). This was likely for shots where Harry’s face was not necessarily up close, so the missing lenses wouldn’t be obvious, or perhaps CGI lenses were added in post-production.

Why Harry Potter’s Eyeglasses Became As Much Of A Staple As His Scar

Harry’s scar was a core part of his story, symbolizing his survival after his parents were killed and setting up how he could be one of Voldemort’s seven Horcruxes. Less directly linked to specific plot point – but just as crucial to his character – were Harry’s eyeglasses. The author of the Harry Potter book series, JK Rowling, provided the importance of Harry’s glasses in a press conference for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (via CBBC):

Because I had glasses all through my childhood, and I was sick and tired of the person in the books who wore the glasses was always the brainy one, and it really irritated me and I wanted to read about a hero wearing glasses.

Rowling also mentioned that the story was from Harry’s point of view, so the glasses acted as a symbolic nod to him as the “eyes“ of the books and films. Both the glasses and the scar have an impact since they’re common attributes fans emulate for cosplaying and typically feature on franchise merchandise. Although Radcliffe went through 160 pairs of glasses, the Harry Potter franchise managed to replicate each iconic pair perfectly without pulling focus away from their inherent importance to Harry’s character.