John Lithgow has admitted that he almost made a U-turn on his decision to play Albus Dumbledore in HBO‘s Harry Potter reboot.
The actor is among the A-list stars who signed onto the TV show adaptation of J.K. Rowling‘s beloved books, a lineup that also includes Janet McTeer, Nick Frost, Paapa Essiedu, Katherine Parkinson and Johnny Flynn.
This week, in a new interview with The New York Times, Lithgow confessed he has never met the author and does not align with her staunch anti-trans views, though he says her wizarding world books are “clearly on the side of the angels, against intolerance and bigotry.”
Promoting his recent film Jimpa, Lithgow tells the outlet he has felt “stung” by the social media reaction to his casting, with some fans promising to boycott the series entirely.
In Sophie Hyde’s film, the 80-year-old is the grandfather of a trans teenager played by trans actor Aud Mason-Hyde, who recently told Out magazine that Lithgow is “such a beautiful human to make work with… I never felt invalidated or questioned or doubted in my identity or in my transness by him.” But, the young actor said, Lithgow’s decision to board Harry Potter is “disconcerting… There’s an element of this that feels vaguely hurtful.”
Lithgow tells the NYT that he considered quitting Harry Potter but decided not to, ceding that in “every interview I will ever do for the rest of my life, this will come up.”
The controversy surrounding Rowling and her opinions on sex, gender and politics has been a long-running affair. Only last year, Rowling hit out at Emma Watson, who fans will recall played Hermione Granger in the Warner Bros. films, in a lengthy statement on X in September, telling users: “She has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is.” It came after Watson voiced her “deepest wish” that she be permitted to separate her relationship with the author from their opposing views on trans rights.
The Hollywood Reporter has rounded up the full cast of HBO’s Harry Potter series, expected to run for over a decade on HBO Max.
Johnny Flynn, playing Lucius Malfoy, spoke to THR in February about working on the show: “Obviously, there’s quite a lot of stuff around Jo [J.K.] Rowling,” he said. “I suppose that’s been quite interesting to navigate, the conversations there — but all important conversations to have. The people working on this are really, really great and create a really special atmosphere, [like] Francesca [Gardiner] the showrunner, and Mark Mylod and various directors. There’s such care.”
