INTERVIEW: He started out as a minor character in Harry Potter but now Alfred Enoch plays prince Pericles at the RSC

Alfie – as he introduces himself – is sitting down again, this time with me in the RSC offices to speak about playing Pericles. Happily he is an engaging and charming conversationalist.

“The recognition scene at the end of Pericles is probably the best scene I’ll ever get to play,” Alfie tells me. “It’s just the most extraordinary piece of writing. Some scenes feel like magic, like they have their own power drive at work. The end of Pericles is the moment of his life. It’s sort of overwhelmingly, and an absolute gift to play.

“There’s a kind of catharsis in the playing of it. Hopefully it’s true for the audience as well.”

Alfie recognises the discomfort prior to the joy.

“The play is uniquely demanding. That’s why we don’t go to the theatre to watch people sitting around having an easy time necessarily, right? We want to see the biggest moments in people’s lives. That’s what we’re there for.”

Unlike so many of his peers, Alfie did not go to drama school. But then with an accomplished actor for a father and an early leg-up with a regular character in the Harry Potter film series, there was no need.

Sadly William Russell Enoch died in June aged 99, so won’t see his son make his debut with the company. Although Alfie has his mum still, Etheline Margareth Lewis, a doctor.

William was well known as one of the assistants to the first Doctor Who in 1963, and went on to enjoy a long and successful career on stage and screen. Including stints at the RSC in 1970, 1989 (he played the Player King and Ghost to Mark Rylance’s Hamlet) and lastly in 1994.

Stratford has always held a special place in the hearts of the family, and although Alfie’s first summer was spent here obviously he doesn’t remember it.

“They are not really my memories, but my parents always spoke fondly of their time in Stratford. My mum still remembers it very dearly,” he adds.

What he does remember is always wanting to be an actor, and how inspired he was by his dad.

He explains: “I grew up watching films my dad had made, and maybe it was only when I was about eight or something that I saw him on stage for the first time, performing in Henry V at the Globe, and I suppose that was a definitive moment in my life. Although truthfully I already had a sense that acting seemed like a nice way of spending a lifetime.

“He was my first teacher,” continues Alfie. “When I was a child, pretty much anything that I did or performed, I rehearsed it with him. And that’s something we did with a lot of enthusiasm. For him, it must have been good to be able to share in the thing that he loved and had spent his life doing with me. And for us to have that point of connection, for me, it was just exhilarating.

“I was discovering something which, you know, still feeds me to this day, 25, 27 years later. The way I approach the text or my starting points are based on the foundations that he gave me.”

Alfie, like his father before him, studied literature at the University of Oxford – William did English, while his son did Spanish and Portuguese.

Besides his intelligence and actorly skills, William left another amazing legacy for his son…

“He left the most extraordinary bookshelf at home,” explains Alfie. “Still, every time I go to my parents’ house, I’m picking things out and looking for things and thinking, oh, that’s interesting he’s got that. Or did he really read that in French or whatever it is? And he would have actually.

“It’s amazing. I always go and pick up a play, a collection of poetry or something.

“Often there are books I want to buy and I think I’d better check the bookshelf first. It’s a bit of an indulgence when there are probably thousands of books in the house.”

Treading the boards where his dad performed is something Alfie values.

“The personal side of things makes it more special to me,” he says. “Obviously the RSC is an extraordinary institution and is a reference point internationally, but for me there’s something a bit dearer and closer to home in that I get to be telling a story here, where my father worked on a number of occasions, and it feels like a circle. That’s rather nice in a play that deals with ends and beginnings and resolutions and things coming together. It’s very precious.”

Although Alfie’s first acting job as Dean Thomas in Harry Potter took him from age 11 to 21, it wasn’t exactly demanding, nonetheless it meant he could bypass drama school.

“Harry Potter was an amazing experience and an amazing thing to be exposed to, but I didn’t have very much to do,” he explains. “I didn’t come out of it being like, I think I know everything I need to know. But luckily I never really had to explore drama school as I had an agent because of Harry Potter so had made a start in the industry. So when I finished university I could audition for things.“To call it a path is probably misleading, but, you know, a door had been opened as a result in a very big way. But going to university was just wonderful and was something I always wanted to do.”

Alfie has had a slew of great stage and screen roles – Romeo for the Globe and Wes Gibbins in Netflix smash hit How to Get Away With Murder among them. This star is definitely on the rise, with various projects in the offing, including a role in new BBC four-parter Miss Austen.

He’s regularly recognised on the street, but Alfie’s not particularly bothered by the whole fame thing.

“If I hadn’t done things which people had seen and enjoyed, I wouldn’t be here,” he says. “It gives you reach or exposure that opens doors. That’s obviously a wonderful thing, but it’s also a strange thing.

“I love speaking to people, to strangers, but you go on the tube and it’s strange to be sitting there minding your own business and for someone to be filming you, for example.”

Last word on Pericles… “I’ll be delighted if I have a process and an experience as rich as this one. I love it, it takes a place in my heart.”