Step aside Robert Pattinson. British newcomer Freddie Stroma is turning heads and causing heart palpitations as the scene-stealing Gryffindor wizard Cormac McLaggen.
“The scene I love the most is when I am slowly licking my fingers and looking at Hermione,” said the 22-year-old Stroma, who attempts to woo Emma Watson’s character Hermione Granger in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” “I’ve not done that to a girl that I’ve fancied. It’s just so disgusting!”
Enjoying a magical reception as Hogwarts’ newest hottie, Stroma opens up to PEOPLE about his passion for acting and his love life.
Born in London and raised in the nearby town of Ascot, Stroma is the middle child of three with an older sister and a younger brother. “I’m the crazy one in the family,” he says. “When I was young, I never really thought I would go into acting. At that age I wanted to be a ninja but the dream to be an actor started when I was 16.”
His aspiration came true when he was accepted into the highly prestigious National Youth Theater, which has led to five prominent acting roles including the BBC’s detective series “Mayo” and now “Potter.”
Besides his polite manners, athleticism and charming good looks, Stroma also has the brains. He earned a neuroscience degree with high marks from the University College London in June while juggling his film roles and a side gig in modeling to help pay for tuition. “Neuroscience was absolutely perfect for me. To study the mind, brain, nervous system with a scientific approach is fun. It’s philosophical, psychological and biological, three areas I find fascinating,” he says. Stroma took a year long break from his studies to film “Harry Potter” and then went back to school to finish his degree. “It would have been a shame to just throw it away so it meant a lot to finish it off for me.”
But is he available? With his new heartthrob status and countless fan blogs dedicated to him, such as a Facebook group called, “Freddie Stroma Puts Me in a Coma,” he admits it’s a fine line between weird and flattering. “It is a bit strange having other people talk and have opinions about me, and people looking up stuff about me,” says Stroma. “It’s people saying that they like me. It’s quite nice.”
Unfortunately ladies, he’s off the market. The curly blond, blue-eyed hunk with washboard abs has a girlfriend of two and a half years. They met at school and she’s not in showbiz. He calls her “quite lovely and a supportive girl.” Though female fans are already swooning over him, “She’s not worried about it,” he says. “She knows that I’m not the kind of person that would let it go to my head so there’s nothing really to worry about. We are in a committed relationship.”
Unlike his brash romance skills onscreen, Stroma is personally more of a sensitive romantic. “I like to think that I’m a romantic type of person, but I’m a realistic romantic,” he says. “For me it’s the sweet gestures like the little things in life that I can do when I am with someone. It’s just about constantly reminding them how much they mean to me. ... Saying the ‘L-word’ everyday, that’s the one that everyone is terrified of but don’t need to be.”
Another thing he’s not afraid of? Sweets. “I’ve got a ridiculously sweet tooth,” he says. “I have a lot of candy and I usually pick-n-mix, which is a killer, and Haribo is pretty good as well. But cookies and milk are pretty standard for me. I have a lot of it. I’m quite a bit shocked how much I haven’t grown up in that sense.”
He’s also not too old to cut a rug. “1 don’t have any particular moves but I like trying desperately to do Michael Jackson moves jokingly with friends,” he says of his dancing skills, which are making the rounds on the Internet. “There’s an Acne modeling video on the Net where I’m dancing in my underwear and it shows I’m not good because I had to dance barefoot to music that I didn’t know ... I have not heard the end of it from my rugby friends since that was released.”
Hopefully we’ll be hearing more from Stroma.