Exclusive: watch The Walking Dead's Andrew Lincoln rave about his love for Harry Potter and Quidditch

Andrew Lincoln is well used to frightening audiences as zombie-killer Rick Grimes in HBO's The Walking Dead. But it was his performance as Harry Potter's Hagrid that terrified a young captive audience at home.

"I started reading the books way too early to my children," says Lincoln, in a new video interview for The Telegraph. "I scared them to death... they were only 18 months old!"

The British actor narrates a new "immersive" audiobook of JK Rowling's Quidditch Through the Ages, released today. The book was first published by Rowling in 2001 alongside Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – another spoof textbook from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

While Fantastic Beasts has been adapted into a blockbuster film franchise, Rowling's guide to Quidditch has not been given a dramatic treatment until now.

Lincoln, 44, was inspired to take on the project after reading his children the Harry Potter books at bedtime. "I think I've done some of my finest work by the bedside, when I'm an unemployed actor," he said. He is, however, aware of tough competition from another audio version of the Harry Potter stories: "My children are sick of the sound of me now – they prefer Stephen Fry."

Quidditch Through the Ages is published by Pottermore and out now on Audible