{"id":276553,"date":"2026-02-02T07:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T07:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/276553\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T07:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T07:34:09","slug":"john-lithgow-defends-starring-in-harry-potter-amid-j-k-rowling-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/276553\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lithgow defends starring in ‘Harry Potter’ amid J.K. Rowling backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Lithgow<\/a> is addressing his decision to play Dumbledore in HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter<\/a> series despite backlash sparked by J.K. Rowling<\/a>‘s controversial anti-trans views.\n<\/p>\n

“I take the subject and the issue extremely seriously,” the 79-year-old actor insisted during an onstage discussion of\u00a0Sophie Hyde\u2019s queer family drama Jimpa at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), per The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>. “J.K. Rowling has created this amazing canon for young people, young kids\u2019 literature that has jumped into the consciousness of society.”\n<\/p>\n

He continued, “Young and old people love Harry Potter and the Harry Potter stories. It\u2019s so much about acceptance. It\u2019s about good versus evil. It\u2019s about kindness versus cruelty. It\u2019s deeply felt.”\n<\/p>\n

Lithgow added that he finds it “ironic and somewhat inexplicable that Rowling has expressed such views” and noted that he has never spoken to her about said remarks.\n<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve read about them, and I\u2019ve never met her,” Lithgow explained. “She\u2019s not really involved in this production at all. The people who are re-adapting Harry Potter and turning it into an eight-year-long TV series are remarkable\u2026 These are people I really want to work with.”\n<\/p>\n

John Lithgow; Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore in ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’.<\/p>\n

Jamie McCarthy\/Getty; Murray Close\/Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

Rowling has long been criticized by LGBTQ+ organizations and members of her own fan base for espousing hurtful rhetoric that is tied to the TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) movement, which posits the belief that trans women are not women. Meanwhile, Lithgow has played several queer and transgender characters across his career, even earning an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of trans woman Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Upon discovering that Lithgow had accepted a role<\/a> in the series as Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, many fans expressed outrage and disappointment. But the actor continues to vehemently defend his decision to sign on for the planned eight-season saga.\n<\/p>\n

“Of course, it upsets me when people are vehemently opposed to my having anything to do with this,” Lithgow said on stage at IFFR. “But if you read through the Harry Potter canon, you see absolutely no trace of transphobic sensibility. She has written this great meditation on kindness and empathy and acceptance, which is why it\u2019s so strange to me.”\n<\/p>\n

Lithgow continued, “Dumbledore is a beautiful role. There\u2019s so much more to it than I even realized, mainly because of these people who are creating the series. So it was a hard decision on the basis of that [controversy], and it made me very uncomfortable and unhappy that people were actively insisting that I walk away from this job. But I chose not to do that.”\n<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the state of U.S. and global politics overall, Lithgow added, “Now, we\u2019re in the midst of a war on empathy, and I\u2019m on the side of empathy.”\n<\/p>\n

In April, Lithgow admitted that he was surprised by the backlash<\/a> to his casting, sharing that he realized the gravity of the situation when he received a text from “a very good friend who is the mother of a trans child,” linking him to a Book Riot op-ed entitled, An Open Letter to John Lithgow: Please Walk Away from Harry Potter<\/a>.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

John Lithgow at the 2024 SAG Awards.<\/p>\n

Frazer Harrison\/Getty<\/p>\n

“I thought, ‘Why is this a factor at all?'” Lithgow said at the time. “I wonder how J.K. Rowling has absorbed it. I suppose at a certain point I\u2019ll meet her, and I\u2019m curious to talk to her.”\n<\/p>\n

He added that the criticism has not soured his excitement over the role.\n<\/p>\n

Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

In the years since Rowling began espousing anti-trans rhetoric, several Harry Potter stars \u2014 including franchise leads Daniel Radcliffe<\/a>, Rupert Grint<\/a>, and Emma Watson<\/a> \u2014 have spoken out against her<\/a>, in support of the trans community.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Echoing Lithgow’s perspective, HBO and Max CEO Casey Bloys<\/a> has maintained that the Harry Potter TV show hasn’t “felt any impact” from Rowling’s anti-transgender views, insisting, “It hasn’t affected the casting or hiring of writers or production staff or anything.”\n<\/p>\n

For her part, Rowling has explicitly stated that as she continues to financially benefit from the Harry Potter and wider Wizarding World franchise, she will continue funding legal cases, foundations, and policy that seek to limit the rights of transgender women. The author has even dipped into her wealth for the founding of the J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund, which supports individuals and organizations “fighting to retain women\u2019s sex-based rights.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Lithgow is addressing his decision to play Dumbledore in HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter series despite backlash sparked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-276553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}