They entertain audiences of witches, wizards, and muggles.

James Edward-Kelly and Toby Holloway of Potted Potter are our guests this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

(James Edward-Kelly) When Harry Potter gets to Hogwarts, he made some very good friends, the first of which was a young boy by the name of Ron Weasley.

(Toby Holloway) Oh, it's me, Ron Weasley.

Eyes lit.

Eyes sick.

Eyes wicked.

♪ Oh here am I defying gravity ♪ -Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

That was Potted Potter that you just saw, a show that's celebrating its sixth year on the Las Vegas Strip.

Potted Potter shares the Harry Potter saga with a speedy synopsis of the seven books told in 70 minutes at the Imagine Showroom at Horseshoe Las Vegas.

Just two actors play more than 300 characters, and they join us in studio.

James Edward-Kelly and Toby Holloway, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you for having us.

-Thank you.

-And so let's be honest, two actors playing 300 characters, it's really more like one actor plays one character, correct?

-Right.

One of us definitely got the shorter end of the stick.

One of us has the easier job.

No, but definitely it is so much fun.

Yeah, no, because I play Harry and I'm the UK's Harry Potter expert.

-Really?

-Yes.

-Who gave you that title?

-Myself.

[laughter] Much deserved.

And so I've decided I'm going to play Harry and Toby has to play everyone else, because comedy.

-Because comedy.

-And this role-- well, your 299 roles, right, seems to have a lot of turnover, at least in recent years, we were talking about off camera.

Why is that do you think?

Because how long have you been playing Harry Potter in Las Vegas?

-I thought it was going to be six months.

It turned into three years.

And it's been a joy every day to do it.

-You got here...?

-About a month and a half ago, yeah.

-What's the transition been like?

Where did you come from?

-I came from Edinburgh in Scotland, and it's a lot colder and wetter in Scotland, so moving to the desert was certainly a culture shock.

And it's very hot.

It's very hot.

I love it, but I have a tan constantly now, and I'm not complaining.

-Do you burn easily?

I don't know why I'm asking that.

-Yeah.

It's my Celtic blood.

I burn very, very easily.

We don't, we don't tan in Scotland.

Because it's so cold, you just start growing moss.

That's kind of what happens.

[laughter] -I have more questions about Scotland, but let's go back to why is there a lot of turnover in that role?

Is it because it's so hard to play that many roles?

-Well, is it?

I assume it is.

-Well, I don't want to brag.

-We make it look easy.

-It's the producers of the show want to make, to keep it as a sort of British production, as British as possible, because the books are obviously British.

And so it's very difficult with all the sort of logistical things is the main reason why it's hard to cast this show, I think.

-Just having actors from the UK come over to do the role, I mean, you're asking a lot.

You're asking someone to change their life, to move to a new country, someplace they've probably never been before.

But I think to headline on the Las Vegas Strip, I think it's pretty good, pretty good.

-Yeah, I couldn't pass it up.

I had to do it.

-What did your parents think?

-My dad was delighted.

My mom was terrified.

I think she misses me very much, and I miss her too, but she's coming to visit in November.

-Why terrified?

Because Las Vegas or simply because you're leaving home?

-Because I'm leaving home.

She's, she loves me very much.

[laughter] -Where were you prior to starting this role?

-I was in Los Angeles.

I was, I was doing the whole actor thing, so I was waiting tables, being a bartender.

And I saw the audition notice.

There's, there's LinkedIn or there's actor websites to find jobs.

And I was just scrolling through one day.

I'm like, hang on, Harry Potter, British accent, UK, I could do that.

And I submitted on a whim.

And then it turned into about a month of like, sending in an audition tape and then a second one and then an in-person meeting with the writer, Dan Clarkson.

We-- it was so funny.

We had a final audition tape.

We filmed in Santa Monica, given a nice big old hug.

Everything went well.

And then the next day, everything was shut down for about a year.

So there was a year-- -For COVID.

-Am I doing this?

Am I not doing it?

So like I had this whole, I had such, such starry-eyed visions of coming to Vegas, but I didn't know if it was going to actually happen.

And then finally, on the, on the 21st of May on the 29th birthday, I got an email of the contract for this.

So it was a lovely birthday present, and then here I am, three years later.

-And I imagine you used all that time during COVID to read every single Harry Potter book.

-Naturally.

-Is that a requirement, or at least see all the movies?

-I think it should be.

-You have read all the books?

-Not all of the books, but I've definitely seen all the films.

I've gone down many a YouTube rabbit hole of like, all the lore and like all the comparisons between the books and the films.

-And you've read the seventh book-- -I've read the seventh book.

- --a million times.

-Yeah.

-Why is that your favorite?

-Well, by force.

No.

Because there's a moment in the show where I have to read as the audience is coming in, and so, naturally, I want to keep, you know, in character.

So I sit for about 10 minutes every day, and I read.

I read through Book Seven.

I've read it through about four times now.

And now I'm at the point where I just open up to a random page, and I just start from there and I go on.

But I think I've done that too many times now, because for the past four shows, I've opened up to the same chapter.

I'm like, I need a-- I need to move on.

I need to find something else, yeah, but it's fun.

-Toby, what about you?

Have you read all the books?

-Yeah!

[laughter] -Definitely.

-No.

I'm a little bit younger than James.

I'm quite a bit younger than James, and I grew up with the movies.

I treat the first two films like Christmas movies, watch them every year.

Loved them, went to see them all in the theaters.

My character in the show has not read the books, so I take it as a mark of pride that the real version of me has also not read the books.

I've listened to a lot of the audio books, but, no, I've never read them.

-Okay.

-So please don't ask me any questions about them.

-Send them over to me.

I'm ready.

-You haven't been working together that long, but you appear to have a lot of chemistry already.

-Yes.

-How did that happen?

How did you make that happen?

-It's just naturally who we are, I think.

-It just happened.

It was a relief.

I'm a deeply, deeply unserious person.

So I need to work with deeply unserious people.

I-- this job at the end of the day is nobody's gonna die if it goes wrong.

Do you know what I mean?

So it's fun, and I treat work as fun.

And if it's not fun, why am I doing it?

So I just, I come to work every day with a view to just have fun, and you are pretty much the same.

You're so easy going, and it's great.

We get on well, and I'm very grateful.

-And that's really important to the show as well, because we are, we're best friends off stage, but on stage we're also playing-- -You're best friends already, after you moved here in April?

-Yeah.

-I don't know anyone.

I have no choice.

-Again, by force.

And it's, it's an important part of the show because we are playing, like, different versions of ourselves.

So like, if you have, if you have good chemistry on and off stage, like you're set.

And a lot, a lot of the jokes in the show come from me and the audience expecting so much of Harry Potter and it just falling short because of Toby's misguidance, I guess, or his ignorance, I guess.

-I know you say that no one's gonna die from doing this show; you can't take it that seriously.

But it's at such a rapid pace that if you forget one line or mess up, I mean, couldn't it throw everything off?

-Well, the beauty of this show is about 30% of it is improvised every show.

So if-- in improv, nothing can go wrong.

You just roll with it.

If something does go wrong, it's now part of the show.

And this is because we also play-- we're Toby and James when we're on stage as well.

That's what we call each other.

And the beauty of that is we can break character, and we can.

And those moments are some of my favorite moments in the show, is when something goes even slightly wrong, and we can just roll with it.

The audience gets a kick out of it, because they know this doesn't happen every night, we've seen something new and different here.

And it's great.

And, yeah, this is, you do feel like you're going to die sometimes.

I have about eight costume changes in 30 seconds at one point.

-Whoa.

-And there are some, some nights at the end of that bit where you say a line, and I just go [heavy breathing].

Just a second.

[laughter] -Talking about the audiences, I know this is a family friendly show, but I imagine that you might have bachelorette parties at some point?

-Oh yeah.

-And I just picture like brides who have been in love with Harry Potter their whole lives.

Do you experience that?

-Oh, yeah.

And we-- -What is that like?

-We love those crowds.

-Paint the picture.

-We love them for obvious reasons.

We love them very much, because it's all just a bunch of friends getting together and like saying something funny, and they're so up for anything and everything in the show, because they love, they love the parts of the books and the novels that stay true that I present, and just audiences, in general, also love all the things that Toby messes up, because we know what it should be.

And then, oh, wait, oh, he's done that now?

Oh, no!

It's just so embarrassing but funny.

It's great, and we love those crowds.

-The comedy is very-- it's like a Leslie Nielsen film, isn't it?

-Yeah.

Oh, that's a good one, very slapstick.

-Very deep cut there.

No, it's very just slapstick, double entendre nonsense, and it's, it's all about just not taking it seriously.

And we get a lot of people who come with-- a lot of couples that come, and maybe the partner is the Harry Potter fan and then the other one isn't.

And they see us after the show, and they go, Oh, I didn't know what to expect.

I wasn't sure, but you guys were really funny.

So it's like, we love the converts.

They're some of our favorite people that come and don't know much about Harry Potter, but they do know by the end, they know a silly telling of the story.

And they have a good laugh, and that's all we can hope for.

-I want to fit this in, because I went down a little bit of a YouTube rabbit hole about the Scottish Highlands, where you are from, home of the Loch Ness monster?

-Oh, yeah.

I've seen her.

I've seen her many times.

She's lovely.

She's very nice to tourists.

She's not real.

[laughter] -What else about that area?

It's very rural, right?

-I grew up living across the road from a field full of Highland cows.

That was, that was my upbringing.

And it's, yeah, everyone-- it's a type of place where everyone waves at you as you drive past.

It's just the most-- -Have you found that to be true in Vegas?

-No.

But no, it's utterly hospitable people who just haven't got a lot going on in the Highlands.

But here, people are very hospitable.

But there's just, it's in every densely populated area, you don't have time to say hello to everyone, you know?

But no, it's, it's certainly a culture shock moving here and having to wait 20 minutes to cross the road.

[laughter] -In this heat as well.

-Yeah.

-Honestly, you chose the worst time to come.

-Nah, it's fine.

I like heat.

We've got a pool.

-That's true.

-Yeah.

And you live in the same complex?

-Yeah.

-Yes.

-And so then, obviously, you both have the same days off, which ends up being one day a week, Wednesday.

What do you find yourself doing on that day in Las Vegas?

-I love a good gym session.

I love, I love lifting weights.

And I know I should be exhausted.

I should want to sleep in, but I really like taking advantage of my day off.

Like, I don't want to spend it tired, so I try and go for a run if I can, maybe go to the gym.

And then I just make a nice meal for myself.

It's a day where I can just relax and do errands if I have to, laundry, all the usual, like, you know, adult things that you have to do.

I do admit I would need more of a social life, but I have Toby now, so we can go explore.

We actually went to-- where did we go?

-Red Rock.

-Red Rock, of course.

-Red Rock Canyon was amazing!

Oh, my goodness.

We went for like-- we were like, oh, we'll go for a couple hours, and we ended up there till it pretty much closed.

We were hiking.

Drank gallons of water-- -Yes.

- --and saw, Oh, my goodness, a lizard!

Oh, my goodness, what is that, a little chipmunk squirrel thing?

We were just like children.

-I guess we're used to it now.

Also, three years, I'm used to seeing red rock.

Like, I miss and I like the green hills.

You like the red hills?

-Yes.

-I want some greenery.

I need some greenery in my life.

-Okay.

Well, I recommend Mount Charleston, only about an hour away, but we've run out of time.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining-- -Thank you.

- --Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you.