John Lithgow on JK Rowling

[QAOPspaceman]

basically admits he hasn’t bothered thinking about her position on gender identity. The Harry Potter books are about tolerance so her stance is ‘inexplicable’, yet he’s never met her and only ‘read about her views’.
Read her for yourself pal! Do your own fucking thinking!

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/feb/02/john-lithgow-says-he-finds-jk-rowlings-stance-on-trans-rights-ironic-and-inexplicable?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Doesnt it means you have a financial interest or fronted up some of the costs ?

Nor necessarily. As @BackToLurk says,often just a vanity title. I've seen Mick Jagger credited as an exec producer of a film, for example, just cos they've used one of his songs on the soundtrack.

It can do, but not always. It's largely irrelevant anyway. JKR has already indicated she has neither the power nor the inclination to remove any actors. Hard for the TRAs to comprehend, but she seems perfectly relaxed about people holding any legal views they like.

Doesn't all this show how much tolerance JKR has, if she wanted to she'd make sure the actors were all GC, but she doesn't and has no intention to.
I agree with her on this too, other people are entitled to their opinions, its the finger pointing and virtue signalling that bothers me. I don't know what opinion Kiera Knightly has, but her dodge when the question was put to her was enough to gain my respect. There are plenty of actors out there who will slump to Lithgow's level so to deflect or change the subject is fairly daring.

I think she has a lot more IP control than some authors have as her books were bestsellers on older style contract so she had stronger seller power when the international publisher rights and movie mogals came a knocking

Lithgow may be a fool about this but I'd not put him in that category!

Anyway - I think it's fair enough if an elderly man doesn't care to spend his time reading about gender ideology, and actors don't have to share the political views of people they work with.

He should probably just say something like, he has no comment as he hasn't looked into what she said, if asked. Or better, just tell the journalists he won't answer questions about politics.

There are actually a lot of actors who have never said one single thing on this subject, or any other controversial political subject. Which tells me that it is entirely possible to do.

First EP's DO get money for lending their name to a movie, which helps promote it and hopefully make a profit. Second, John Lithgow is an 80 y/o actor, and how many actors past age 60 are working, let alone at age 80? Finally, people like to take a pisser when someone says something or when they say nothing at all. All he likely wants to do is just keep working, and again, he's not lasted this long to be completely open about his views. Besides the fact that The Guardian is banned anyway from TERF Island so it must be a slow news day since there's been not enough pearl clutching articles lately.

Maybe in this new series, JKR should require Dumbledore to have a relationship with one of the special women whom Lithgow seems to admire so much. It would be a bit of a plot departure. But it might help him understand his own bewilderment a bit better.

Add Joyce Carol Oates to the list of the wilfully ignorant ‘be kind’ crowd ready to throw JKR under the bus for no genuine reason. None of this sounds like her at all to me.

how many actors past age 60 are working, let alone at age 80?

Loads!

More men than women, because sexism means fewer parts for older women (and indeed for women in general). But very few actors retire.

Not that it's relevant. If he wants to remain uncontroversial so he can keep working at 80, he could just not say anything at all on the subject.

Had to look her up 😁

Another educated idiot who is proud to say I am too lazy to educate myself on the cultural context but I will lable a woman angry.

The idea that all the expressed opinions are negitive is telling too

Alá
Bloooooody women should just shuuuuuut uuuuup

Whenever I hear her name I think of the comment Gore Vidal is said to have made:

"The Three Saddest Words in the English Language are Joyce Carol Oates."

"I don't even understand her position" and "we don't want to know the bloody details". So a woman who's made her living by writing can't even be bothered to spend twenty minutes to read the source material. I don't think we need bother taking her conclusions too seriously.

According to wik she used the "emotional labor" 👀 of others to earn that living too ...

Purity circles are funnnn 🍿🤣

I don't want to be rude about Joyce Carol Oates, but there is a touch of "old woman yells at cloud" about her. She's one of those cultural figures, like George Takei or Lynda Carter, who seem to have settled down into spending their twilight years tweeting about Trump. Or maybe JKR, if Trump hasn't done anything outrageous in the past hour.

I suppose it's a hobby. And no doubt Joyce wants to make sure she doesn't get cancelled by woke librarians.

But come on Joyce, you're 87 and you've long since made your literary reputation. I suspect that in her case "I don't understand JKR's position" means "I understand her position perfectly well but I can't say so because I'm scared of my political tribe."

i didn't put him in the same category.

But it makes him an utter twat of an idiot. Especially since he hasn't read the source material. And what is worse is the hypocricy. "oh i believe lies other people have said about her but i'm still taking the money, but pleas dear allies and TRAs don't turn on me i already said she's horrible"

I hope it blows right up in his face.

pathetic.

Her greatest genius as a creative writer was her ability to write in a credibly modern style that wasn't terrible (as opposed to Sontag's 60s/70s novels & short stories)

But cheap shots aside she represents practically the sole living member of the old literary public intellectual (e.g. Sontag, Hardwick, Gordimer, Didion, Ozick, Greer, Said, Morrison, Bloom, Eco, etc), and unfortunately one of the least gifted and certainly one of the shrillest.

I don't mind a literary cheap shot. Despite my love of Le Carre's good novels, I still laugh at the scathing review Updike gave him in the New Yorker, which... well, I could get nitpicky and argue that Updike didn't know anything about the spy genre, but I have to admire a man with the audacity to bracket Le Carre with Tom Clancy.

Apparently JLC was furious and had a terrible case of writer's block that he couldn't get past until he'd found yet another much younger woman to shag. I sort of wish the writer's block had stayed with him and spared us all those crappy didactic late-career novels that should really just have been Guardian op-eds.

I'd still read either one of those old sexist gits rather than have another crack at Joyce Carol Oates.

Like so many other shrill puritans, Lithgow has outsourced his opinions on this to the 6th hand ghosts of a tweet from lying activists.

Everyone says it, ergo, it must be true.

Transphobia this, anti-trans that, hateful bigot the other. They're never asked any piercing questions and not one of them has read JKR on thd subject.

Exactly this.

Lithgow is an old pro, but he could still learn from observing other members of his profession.

Good example: Sydney Sweeney, because she's thought to be Republican leaning, often has interviewers asking gotcha questions trying to get her to make a political statement. She doesn't rise to the bait. She's there to promote a film or sell jeans or lingerie, and by golly that's what she's going to do.

Bad example: Watch an awards ceremony - we're in that season right now - and you will observe Mark Ruffalo buttonholing the first person he sees with a microphone and sharing his opinion on everything that's happening in the world. If bus drivers in Jakarta are on strike, Mark Ruffalo, the most progressive actor in the world, needs you to know that he supports them. He may not know what a Jakarta is, but he saw it on Bluesky and he needs you to know that he cares.

Actors speaking about politics, unless they're genuine experts like Richard Gere on Tibet, rarely add anything to the sum of human knowledge. Lithgow is a much loved veteran who can stay a much loved veteran just by knowing when to dodge a question.

“It upsets me when people are vehemently opposed to me having anything to do with this,” he added. “But in Potter canon you see no trace of transphobic sensitivity. She has written this meditation of kindness and acceptance. And Dumbledore is a beautiful role.”

I really appreciated this point by Lithgow that despite JK's views being opposed to acceptance in practice its important not to let that prevent young people learning about acceptance that HP is such a brilliant vehicle for.

@SionnachRuadh Happen to have just finished Nick Harkaway's contribution to his dad's Circus novels, there's some rushed business in the final chapters & the ending feels sketched in, but otherwise not a bad effort if you're ever in the mood for Smiley.

opposed to acceptance in practice

Odd how she has said that everybody should have the same rights and responsibilities and that nobody should suffer discrimination.

Are you suggesting that ^ should not happen?

Or

If you are suggesting special treatment for some people can you expand your personal world view by answering the two questions below?

Can you please explain why you think a teen age girl should be made shower and change clothing in front of any male?

Can you then explain why you support the State policy which (on your behalf) decides that Women in the care of the State should be forced into providing companionship to male sex offenders?