J.K. Rowling has made numerous controversial comments over the years regarding the transgender community. It’s something that has placed many LGBTQ fans of Harry Potter in an uproar, with many no longer supporting Rowling or even the Harry Potter franchise itself. Now Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has declared that her comments on trans people have made him “really sad.”
Radcliffe explained his feelings while speaking with The Atlantic. During the interview, he discussed an op-ed he wrote in 2020 for the LGBTQ suicide prevention group The Trevor Project. In the op-ed, he criticized Rowling’s controversial comments.
Now Radcliffe has once again approached the subject:
“I’d worked with the Trevor Project for 12 years and it would have seemed like, I don’t know, immense cowardice to me to not say something,” Radcliffe told the outlet. “I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments.”
Daniel Radcliffe continues:
“And to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.”
The Harry Potter star then went on to say just how upset these alleged views of Rowling’s make him feel:
“It makes me really sad, ultimately, because I do look at the person that I met, the times that we met, and the books that she wrote, and the world that she created, and all of that is to me so deeply empathic.”
He would then declare, “There’s a version of ‘Are these three kids ungrateful brats?’ that people have always wanted to write, and they were finally able to. So, good for them, I guess,” further adding, “[Rowling], obviously Harry Potter would not have happened without her, so nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person.”
“But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life,” Radcliffe admitted.
It’s a situation that continues to develop, especially as the Harry Potter brand – and the involvement of J.K. Rowling – continues to flourish. A new adaptation in the form of a Max television series based on Rowling’s books is currently in the works. As such, it’s likely that these discussions are far from over. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates as we have them.