A Discovery of Witches: Meet Matthew Goode as Matthew Clairmont, Vampire #book2movies

To be honest, I wouldn’t be reading A Discovery of Witches if I hadn’t turned into a bit of an aging fan girl over Matthew Goode. I’m just not the paranormal romance type. But knowing that Goode is playing the 1500 year old vampire also named Matthew, I can read Deborah Harkness 579 paged novel and easily picture the British actor instead of the creature Harkness was describing.

From the book—

‘This one was tall—well over six feet ... And he definitely was not slight. Broad shoulders narrowed into slender hips, which flowed into lean muscular legs. His hands were strikingly long and agile, a mark of physiological delicacy that made your eyes drift back to them to figure out how they could belong to such a large man.

As my eyes swept over him, his own were fixed on me. From across the room, they seemed black as night, staring up under thick, equally black eyebrows, one of them lifted in a curve that suggested a question mark. His face was indeed striking—all distinct planes and surfaces, with high angled cheekbones meeting brows that shielded and shadowed his eyes. Above his chin was one of the few places where there was room for softness—his wide mouth, which like his long hands, didn't seem to make sense.

Discovery of Witches Instagram 

I don’t know who you picture when you read that but I don’t picture Matthew Goode who at six foot two is tall but not quite the ‘well over six feet’ ‘large man’ Harkness evokes. Goode may not fit the part perfectly, yet he is perfect. 

The television series which will star Goode as the extraordinary vampire and Teresa Palmer as Dr. Diana Bishop, the equally extraordinary American witch and historian, is currently shooting in Oxford where much of the story takes place.

I nabbed this series of shots from the instagram account of Elisangela Damasceno who shared the images of Goode and some of the production staff scouting the college and the Bodleian library.



Are you one of the many devotees of Harkness’ book? Published in 2011 the book is notable for being a romance novel imbued with intelligent prose. A historian and professor at USC, Harkness engages us not only with searing looks but also a mix of historical acumen and her own in-depth knowledge of the occult. Granted my eyes glaze over as the discussion turns to DNA sequences and Mitochondrial DNA. Fingers crossed they gloss over that in the television show.