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It’s rare for an actor to be associated with a character that they’ve never played, but that’s just what happened with Ben Barnes.

For years, fans have speculated on what it would be like if Barnes played the Harry Potter character Sirius Black. In fact, the fancast has gotten so popular that Barnes constantly finds himself signing Harry Potter merchandise.

“It was very weird for a lot of years, because I really didn’t understand what was happening,” Barnes says during a panel at Tampa Bay Comic Convention. “People would sort of ask me to sign things and I was like, ‘You know what? I was in Narnia.’ And so, for a lot of years, I found it confusing, and then I went through a phase of being like, ‘Wait, people have sort of imagined me in this sort of old universe thing for like, 15 plus, 20 years now.’"

"And  it’s the commitment to it, which I really kind of value and I think is really lovely because most people found those stories and movies when they came out, they found it something really joyful.”

Gary Oldman played Black in the Harry Potter film series, but the role hasn’t been cast for the 2027 television reboot. While Barnes has some love for the character, he can’t look at the franchise the same way due to J.K. Rowling’s rhetoric.

“In the last few years, I found it to be a much more difficult thing to talk about, because there’s obviously, a clash between some of the author's views on things and the way I see the world. That’s sadly sort of tainted this beautiful mythology of those stories, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s really such a cool character, and to be associated with a character like that from other people who do love it, it's like a really beautiful thing, and it makes me happy.”

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