Harry PotterDaniel Radcliffe honors paralyzed
Published on December 01, 2025 EDT David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived charts the physical performer's journey after his life-changing injury.

After working with stuntman David Holmes throughout all the Harry Potter films, its star Daniel Radcliffe watched his double suffer a horrific on-set injury during the production of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that left Holmes permanently paralyzed.

Holmes' story will now be told in the new HBO documentary David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived, which Radcliffe produced. The title is a reference to Harry Potter, comparing Holmes' survival through adversity to that of the beloved character whose physical feats he once performed.

"David always seemed like a cool older brother," Radcliffe says in the trailer. "He would do the most dangerous physical stuff."

The documentary compiles clips of a young Holmes developing his athletic skills and eventually becoming a stuntman, as well as behind-the-scenes material of his work on the Harry Potter films. It also includes candid personal footage from the past decade of Holmes learning to live with his disability.

David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived aims to reflect "universal themes of living with adversity, growing up, forging identities in an uncertain world, and the bonds that bind us together and lift us up," according to the film's official synopsis.

"This terrible thing happened to Dave, but I don't want to talk as if his life is a tragedy," Radcliffe says in the trailer. "The way his life has affected the lives of the people around him means it is the furthest thing from that imaginable."

For his part, Holmes says that "before the accident, everything was about being cool and being a stuntman. Now it's about being present. I have so much love in my life."

David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived premieres Nov. 15 on HBO and will also stream on Max. Watch the trailer above.

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