How two Bangladeshi origin girls were cast in Harry Potter

For Indian Harry Potter fans, a highlight of the fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was the Yule Ball. It was the scene that properly introduced the series' only major Indian characters, the twins Parvati and Padma Patil. Played by Shefali Chowdhury and Afshan Azad, Parvati and Padma were Harry Potter and Ron Weasley's dates at the ball.

Shefali and Afshan played the Patil twins in five Harry Potter films, including the two-part finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Parts 1 and 2. In a 2005 BBC interview, the actors spoke about the nerve-wracking process of their casting.

Shefali said, "It all came about when the casting agents were going round some schools in my area looking for some people to go to the auditions. I had just got out of an exam and I thought that I had done really badly in the exam, and I was in a bad mood and my teacher was waving my name at me on a sheet of paper with all these other girls. She said someone came looking for two twins for the Harry Potter books to be in the film - are you interested? And I was like yeah!" She added that since she was a fan of the series, she decided to give it a shot. She continued, "I went to the first audition and I thought OK there's a lot of girls here, I don't know if I've got a chance, but there's nothing to lose, so I just went for it. Then I got a call about a week later, maybe more, saying that I was through to the next round, so I was OK I've got a chance now. I was really getting excited, and they just kept calling back after each audition until me and Afshan auditioned together with Mike Newell the director, then we got a call back saying that we both had got it - that was it really."

Afshan added, "In the morning (at school) we have notices and we had a notice that our form tutors just reads out. Then she said that casting agents were coming to our school to look for two Asian twins to take part in the Harry Potter films and everyone just started laughing."