‘Harry Potter’ actor hired earworm assistant to give him lines on set

Ellis, 69, says she was brought in as an “earworm” in 2010 and fed him lines just before he needed them, officially posing as his assistant so the cast and crew wouldn’t know.

Gambon, who died in September 2023 at the age of 82 after contracting pneumonia following a bout of flu, he had already had a career spanning more than five decades on stage and screen.

By the time Ellis joined him at David Hare’s Page eight for the BBC, his fear of forgetting lines was acute. She said: “He was clearly scared,” and described how he admitted that “the old brain” was no longer working.

The system survived for nine years, from British television to international locations. On the Sky drama Fortitudefilmed in Iceland, Ellis says the reality was harder to hide.

“The longest we were gone was on Fortitude in Iceland,” she said. “And in a very small team in a very small place I was revealed.” When the connection to the earpiece failed, Gambon would panic and shout for her help as the words disappeared.