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Chris Columbus, the director of the first two blockbuster Harry Potter films, has shared his candid thoughts about JK Rowling.
The 60-year-old author — who wrote the popular Harry Potter novels — has been publicly criticized for her controversial statements about transgender people, including celebrating the UK Supreme Court’s April ruling that trans women are not legally women under the Equality Act and questioning the use of hormones for gender transitions. However, Rowling has denied being transphobic.
Columbus has now addressed the controversy surrounding Rowling, saying he doesn’t agree with her opinions on transgender rights.
“I like to sometimes separate the artist from the art, I think that’s important to do,” he told Variety in an interview published Monday. “It’s unfortunate, what’s happened. I certainly don’t agree with what she’s talking about. But it’s just sad, it’s very sad.”
Rowling is also the executive producer of the new Harry Potter series, which is expected to run for a decade on HBO. Each season is based on one of the seven books Rowling penned, following the story of 11-year-old Harry Potter as he learns of his acceptance to Hogwarts.
Chris Columbus says the JK Rowling controversy is ‘unfortunate’ (Getty)
However, Columbus said that he doesn’t have any plans to work on that TV reboot. “No, I’ve done it, you saw my version,” he told Variety. “There’s nothing left for me to do in the world of Potter.”
Still, he gave his seal of approval for the new program.
“The great thing about it is that with the first and second and third book, we wanted to do it all,” he said about the Harry Potter films. “We wanted to bring all of that onto the screen, and we didn’t have the opportunity.”
Since 2019, Rowling has made headlines for her views on transgender issues. She came out in support of Maya Forstater, who worked as a tax expert at the Centre for Global Development (CGD), an international think tank. However, Forstater was dismissed from the job in 2019 because she tweeted that transgender people cannot change their biological sex.
In May, Rowling announced the launch of the J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund. The legal fund, which doesn’t specifically mention transgender people, will support “individuals and organizations fighting to retain women’s sex-based rights in the workplace, in public life, and in protected female spaces,” its website says.
However, many bookstores in San Francisco later responded to the fund by pulling Harry Potter books from stores’ shelves in protest.
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, the trio of child actors who played Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger in the film series, have all publicly shunned Rowling over her apparent anti-transgender views. The author has said she would not forgive them for criticizing her, telling them to “save their apologies.”