John Lithgow on JK Rowling

Does the Graun still have a 'Style Guide', of which IIRC they were very proud? Hence saying 'actor' instead of 'actress', etc. Cisgender should really be in the dumpster now.

tbh i try not to read actors' (and other famous people) opinions because so often it ends in disappoinment.

Was badly burned by Marion Zimmer Bradley, so i don't take the risk.

Brilliant!
I think he is deeply dishonest if these are his real views on JKR. He should quit and let someone else take the part. On the other hand, if these are not his true feelings, he is doubly dishonest.
It's amazing what you can tell your head isn't it.

He's a great actor but honestly, what a total chump. I am so fed up of the hand wringing and grandstanding from actors who are queuing up to be a part of JKR's creation because of the money / fame / career opportunities, but insist on smearing her along the way

Lithgow is mystified by the 'kindness' and acceptance in the books. It's almost like JKR isn't actually 'transphobic' AT ALL

What a plum 🙄

Nope
Pervert

Any man pushing the idea that men should be have a right of access into a space where I am changing is classed into the pervert class

Small point but I can't believe that "serious journalists" at The Guardian are still using the term "cisgender". It's 2026 people! What a joke.

He spoke a little differently to Hadley Freeman when he was playing Roald Dahl and I think it's important to note that he was speaking at the launch of a film directed by a woman with a "trans and non binary" child (guess what sex the child is) who is also in the film. I think we think too much of actors' opinions (I've been very guilty of this) because, after all, they pretend for a living.

https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=www.thetimes.com/culture/theatre-dance/article/john-lithgow-interview-dumbledore-jk-rowling-roald-dahl-mgdcdbx0s

https://variety.com/2026/film/global/john-lithgow-dumbledore-harry-potter-jk-rowlings-jimpa-1236648292/

I really hope it doesn't

Like every person I have ever met who loathes her and her views, he's only read 'about' them? Try reading them, mate. You will find a coherent, warm, sane, highly intelligent, reasonable and brave mind at work.

I am so bloody sick of this. DS lives abroad and we do the Guardian quiz at weekends on Zoom to keep the family connected. DS's partner answered a question in it which happened to be about Harry Potter and apologised for knowing the answer. Like you should feel ashamed of ever having read her. I started to say, HP is a modern classic, no shame in...and DS cut me off. I couldn't be arsed to cause a family row, long distance. But I am getting really tired of this persistent loathing of such a wonderful, powerful, brave woman

He should be playing Fudge and not Dumbledore.

How does he think it's 'kindness' to force female nurses to strip in front of men as a condition of employment or female children to strip in front of males who want into the girls changing room. Or is it only men who matter? I assume that must be it.

What an absolute bellend he is. I feel offended he's playing such a decent and well written character who would never do that to girls.

JK Rowling's observation of human nature is second to none. I note that the stairway to the girls dormitory in Gryffindor tower turns into a slide if a boy tries to go up. If only we could adopt this approach to single sex spaces. She was ahead of her time in so many ways in the HP books.

Can we please just write off any man with an opinion that other men should be allowed to:
A. Appropriate women’s sex through the medium of harmful gender stereotypes
B. Thinks men should have unfettered access to women’s spaces.

over privileged prick

“I’ve read about them, and I’ve never met her. She’s 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. … These are people I really want to work with.”

One could say his own cowardliness and weakness is inexplicable considering what the character he is playing is about.

He sneakily trying to pretend the production owes nothing to JK Rowling so no one should blame him for taking the part. He has also made himself look stupid and unable to read or think.

His own cowardly

"I am a man who has taken a role in a film where I am going to be asked this question and give my opinion. I am going to go along with smearing JKR because I have read about her opinion, even though it seems wildly at odds with her writing themes. I think this is strange, but I can't be arsed to engage my brain further to explore why this might be the case. Instead I'm going to merely virtue signal my opposition whilst getting a nice pay day and critical acclaim off the back of her work."

Honest to god mate. This is really a shite take whatever side of the fence you look from.

Where does he get "tolerance" as the main message of those books?

Exactly. If he finds her views so inexplicable, perhaps he should try to find out a bit more to help his understanding?

It very much sounds as if he’s just talking out of his arse until he comes out with “transphobic sensitivities”, which is a nasty accusation that can’t be ignored as easily as the rest of it.

Cross post with the professor!

Although actually, JKR's got rather more death threats than Harry did, IIRC. I suppose it was a children's book.

It shows a rather unpleasant misogyny. That a man thinks someone as fiercely intelligent and articulate as JKR could veer so wildly off piste from what is the main theme of 7 entire wildly successful books that I presume Lithgow has read (if he's going to be acting in a show about them). On a feminine whim, presumably.

When in reality of course her position on women's rights is entirely consistent with the central themes of the HP books. Truth, honesty, fairness, fighting for justice even when it's hard, extreme bravery in the face of people shouting you down.

I mean she couldn't have predicted more clearly what's happened to her in the treatment of Harry when he's speaking the truth and everyone's smearing him for it.

The fact it doesn't cross his mind that things people have told him about JKR might in fact be wrong and in fact her views may be entirely consistent with the HP universe and doesn't bother to find out for himself out of pure self interest is just misogyny on steroids.

There is no fucking way he'd be saying the same thing about a male author.

The Harry Potter books are about tolerance so her stance is ‘inexplicable’,

He's wrong twice over. The books are .mainly about courage. Courage to do the right thing - even if it makes you unpopular, even if means standing up against your friends, even if it makes you an outcast or gets you killed. Courage to oppose the crowd, if the crowd is wrong. Courage to protect the weak against the strong.

Which makes her stance completely explicable.

Exactly. She has more integrity and class than to go round demanding people are fired because they don't agree with her.

But why bother pandering? The TRAs will still hate him for taking the part regardless of what he says, so why bother saying anything at all?

Probably like most people who have done this, using her name for cheap shots as an easy way to whip up publicity for themselves. Lazy and crass.

Has he actually read about her views in her words or her views in other people's words? I think I know which but I'm not clicking that crappy rag's link.

A few years ago my brother told me he didnt understand why I still liked JKR as her views were so awful. I asked if he'd read them. He hadn't. Like John Lithgow he'd only "read about them". So he googled it there and then. Read her original essay, realised she hadn't said anything like what she was being accused of and apologised to me for being a twat.

Why so many people are still so quick to bad mouth her without reading and thinking about what she said for themselves is the only inexplicable thing here.

Yes, and I've also seen them proclaim they know what she says because they been told about it but they cannot possibly read it for themsleves because it will harm them. Eyes roll out of head.
They'd probably get ostracised if they actually did, it's all of a piece with reading Mein Kampf literally makes you Hitler.
Terribly Fahrenheit 451, and so we go on merrily inventing the wheel again.