John Lithgow recently appeared on The New Yorker Radio Hour and continued to talk about playing Dumbledore in HBO’s Harry Potter reboot, despite the ongoing controversy over author JK Rowling’s anti-trans views. The actor previously called Rowling’s beliefs “inexplicable,” but told The New Yorker, “I think a lot of them have been distorted and misrepresented.”
“Everything about the job and the security of employment for the rest of my life was appealing. I couldn’t ignore those issues,” Lithgow told the magazine about signing on to play Dumbledore. “This whole topic of Rowling’s alleged bias was brought up after everything was already going on. I had already said yes (…) I was encouraged to leave, but I had no intention of doing so.”
“The reasons for doing so were far stronger than the reasons for protesting Rowling’s actions or words,” he continued. “While I don’t agree with much of it, I think much of it has been distorted and misrepresented, and she reinforced it at her own expense.”
Ms Lithgow said she was “surprised and disappointed” by the continued tone of Ms Rowling’s bigoted posts on social media, but stressed that the Harry Potter author was not the one who pitched her for the role in the first place.
“I’ve never met her,” Lithgow said of Rowling. “The other good thing about the Harry Potter project is the people who worked on it themselves. Francesca Gardiner and Mark Myrod have an extraordinary partnership. Francesca…she convinced me. She was a big reason why I took on this project.”
The first footage of Lithgow playing Dumbledore premiered in HBO’s Harry Potter trailer last month, with Rowling writing on Program X: “The show is going to be incredible. I’m so happy.” At the time of her appointment, Rowling had just celebrated the International Olympic Committee’s decision to ban transgender women from competing in women’s Olympic events.
Asked about Rowling’s anti-trans views at the Rotterdam Film Festival earlier this year, Lythgow said: “I take this subject very seriously. She has created this great canon for young people that has permeated the public consciousness. It’s about good and evil, kindness and cruelty. I find her views cynical and inexplicable. I’ve never met her, and she’s not involved in this work at all. But those who do are noteworthy.
“It’s upsetting when people object to my involvement in this, but I don’t see a trace of transphobic sensibilities in the Potter canon. She’s written this meditation on kindness and acceptance, and Dumbledore is a beautiful role,” he concluded.
HBO’s “Harry Potter” is scheduled to air this Christmas.
