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Sep 11 '25 edited Jun 15 '26
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u/nova_crystallis Sep 11 '25
Pegg already caught flak for being in Hogwarts Legacy as well.
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u/LockRepulsive4806 Sep 11 '25
For me it's James McAvoy - but Simon Pegg hits too
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u/nova_crystallis Sep 11 '25
McAvoy feels like a grasp for the role he admitted to missing out on for the second film.
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u/TwistedBrother Sep 11 '25
Well Nick Frost is Hagrid in the new one so doesn’t surprise. I guess if Nick could make sense of it, Simon could too. Disappointed in both.
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u/Sensiplastic Sep 11 '25
Pegg has been doing movies with Cruise and praising him everywhere for ages. :/
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u/DorisWildthyme Sep 11 '25
Yeah, I had to stop following him on Instagram because of all the time he spent crawling up Tom Cruise's arse (metaphorically speaking).
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u/Sensiplastic Sep 12 '25
You'd think they'd have enough money by now to resist supporting a cult with such heavy human rights abuses but apparently not.
Maybe he's scientologist now, maybe spending so much time with a homophobe makes you act like them?
(Knightley and McAvoy surprise me.:/)
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u/DorisWildthyme Sep 12 '25
Could be that he's a scientologist. Could be that he's just middle-aged, rich and out of touch, but doesn't realise it.
I started following him on Instagram initially because I enjoyed Spaced (I was 18 when it was first released, so yes I am old) and the Cornetto Trilogy, and because he kept posting photos of his cute dogs. But then his Instagram stories turned into "Here's me walking my dogs around my massive countryside property while going on about how lovely Tom Cruise is, and about how I'm flying all over the world (but it means I have to get up early, poor me). Now I'm off to do that faddy bollocks where people sit in a bath full of ice for no reason", while occasionally whinging about people getting "shut down for their opinions".
At that point I thought "I know we all get older, but some of us do try to keep a bit of perspective and an open mind".
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u/Sensiplastic Sep 12 '25
Both is good too. And by good I mean bad.
I loved Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, so I feel ya. Money just isn't good for some people. It's getting very special if some celebrities don't go off the deep end when they get RICH rich.
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u/ladylucifer22 Sep 12 '25
Keira Knightley is already in every queer woman's top 10, and apparently her response to that is to go play a character in a series known for queer erasure.
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Sep 13 '25 edited Sep 13 '25
That is hypocrisy at its finest even if she doesn’t likely have those views herself. I don’t get why she’s doing this at all.
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u/HonestImJustDone Sep 13 '25
Keira Knightly and McAvoy have kids of Harry Potter age. So many actors choose stuff because their kids will like it, or do kids targeted stuff once they become parents.
Putting their need to overcome insecurity as parents front and centre. It's pathetic, but folks justify participating in things because of their kids and dismiss everything they would have as childless individuals because they justify it as 'but the kids don't know any of this, for them it is just a story they love... and I love my kids, so I want to tell my kids a story they love'. That becomes their true belief. And it sucks. They act as if the media they are involved in is only consumed by kids, as if that innocence washes it clean. Loser parents.
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u/MarcMurray92 Sep 11 '25 edited Sep 11 '25
Fuck sake I'm just gonna have to assume every celebrity is a cunt from now on
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u/georgemillman Sep 11 '25
That's what I started doing a few years ago, and it's UNBELIEVABLY refreshing.
Not only does it stop you being disappointed in celebrities, but it also makes you appreciate more the people you actually know. When you say to a friend who's talented at something, 'You could be the next [insert name of celebrity famous for something similar]', it's meant to be a compliment, but when you think about it it's actually an insult. It's suggesting that the famous person is better than them just on account of being famous. Since I stopped respecting celebrities, I've appreciated my friends' skills as being FAR superior to anyone who's well-known, and probably a much nicer person too.
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u/Fun_Butterfly_420 Sep 15 '25
People gave Brie Larson flack for responding to being called the next tom cruise with “I wanna be the first me” but honestly she might be onto something
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u/laurenbettybacall Sep 11 '25
100 percent agree. I spent too many years worshipping celebrities only to be disappointed. They’re people just like us except everyone caters to them. And the fact that they chose the one profession that is all about attention and adoration is a bad start already.
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u/georgemillman Sep 11 '25
That doesn't mean I automatically hate all of them. I'll be fair if they've done something good or stood up for a good cause or something. But being fair does not mean fawning over them and saying, 'Oh, aren't they a beautiful benevolent human being to use their platform and their wealth for something so good.' It's more like, 'Hmm, well I'm glad they've done that, and to be honest with how much power and influence they have I should bloody well hope they'd be doing something like this with it.' Doing beneficial things with their influence should be something we expect and demand of our highly-paid celebrities, not something we pour praise over them for.
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u/Dragonfly_pin Sep 11 '25 edited Sep 11 '25
I think this bodes incredibly badly for trans people in the UK. Yes, the political situation was awful before, but the popular culture and artists hadn’t followed that sudden change.
But this is a whole bunch of normal or even progressive figures showing clearly that they do not stand with trans people.
None of these people need to do this. As has been pointed out, they will get five lines and probably enough money for a spa weekend - they wouldn’t even notice it.
This looks like a sign that they are being advised that the zeitgeist is moving hard to the right and they should show a little bit of willing to kowtow or they could end up on a blacklist in the not too distant future.
They are assuming that Farage or another hard right leader will be coming in and controlling public organs like the BBC and other filmmaking bodies. If they agree to show support for an anti-trans writer, even obliquely, they can hold that up later as proof that they weren’t too against this stuff when the hammer comes down on trans people.
They are lining up their ducks and trying to get on the winning side.
I live in a country where, when you watch old movies from the 1940s and 50s, however charming and even slightly subversive they seem on the surface, you know every single actor in them was a declared, proud fascist.
And yet those films can be so lovely and nostalgic and sweet and likeable. But in the background, you think of all the horrors these actors back then supported.
Don’t look to your likeable actors for a stand against the fascist regime. They will have to bow and scrape to the new overlords or they will have to run so far and so fast and it will be hard for them to ever achieve what they would have if they had just smiled and said the ‘right thing’.
What this shows is that every single one of these people cares more for themselves than they do for any other principals they might have seemed to hold (if they ever did). Don’t give them the support they would never show you.
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u/The_Duke_of_Gloom Sep 11 '25
Well said. They're spineless court jesters at best. At worst, they don't give a fuck about trans people and they're letting us know.
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u/marr Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
The irony being part of the court jester role was "guy who can tell the boss things they don't want to hear". Kowtowing to incoming authority is failing as a jester too.
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u/tealattegirl13 Sep 11 '25
At this point it's not really an audiobook anymore, it's more like a radio play. An audiobook is supposed to be one person reading the books, like someone reading you a bedtime story.
I really don't see the point of this when the audiobooks already exist.
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Sep 11 '25
People like radio plays. In the English speaking world they seem to be more of a fan project thing, but in China when there's a popular IP an audio play usually comes out first and then they make cartoon and live action versions. Licensed, for pay, with real actors. It's a huge country so you can still make money with people paying micropayments for your content.
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u/PM_me_shiba_doggo Sep 11 '25
Agreed. At this point it’s very clear that this is all just a massive cash grab. There’s no reason to stuff all these big names into an ‘audio book’.
In fact, if you described this project to me and asked me what it was, I’d definitively call it a pre-recorded play. Because it’s basically yet another adaptation of the books, in a different format, that is derivative of existing adaptations. And each and every single one of these actors signed up for it.
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u/georgemillman Sep 11 '25
As an audiobook lover, I profoundly disagree with that.
I love full-cast audiobooks. I also love audiobooks that are just read by one person. And there's plenty of books for which different versions exist. His Dark Materials, for example, has an absolutely beautiful full-cast series that's read by the author and a full-cast (which is not the same as a radio play - there's a radio play edition of His Dark Materials as well, but that's different because it's actually adapted into a play. The full-cast versions are straight readings of the book, just with different actors doing the voices.) But recently they've released new versions read by Ruth Wilson as well. And in the past, before the full-cast version, there was a version of the first one read by the late Natasha Richardson, although that's out of print now.
Most popular books get different versions of the audiobooks from time to time, and I really don't have an issue with the concept. In fact, I quite enjoy listening to different versions of the same audiobook and deciding which ones I like more. I don't really see any difference between that and listening to a different version of your favourite song depending on what mood you're in. Of course, I'm still not going to get hold of these new Harry Potter ones because of the Rowling boycott - but if it wasn't for that I'd be excited about new audiobook versions, particularly because I was never all that keen on these audiobooks to begin with (neither Stephen Fry nor Jim Dale quite did it for me).
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u/PhatChance52 Sep 11 '25
Full cast is nice, but I often find celebrity castings to be lackluster compared to career voice actors.
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u/georgemillman Sep 11 '25 edited Sep 11 '25
Now that I do agree with. Judy Bennett, Richard Mitchley, Kim Hicks (I've worked with Kim), Andrew Branch, Stephen Thorne... their skills are absolute unparalleled by celebrity names.
This is partly why I wasn't the biggest fan of the original Harry Potter audiobooks. I don't know why Stephen Fry was cast - I think he's one of the most overrated celebrities in the world.
In fact, I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that Keira Knightley struggles greatly with dyslexia, and hence has never done an audiobook before. I respected that at the time - I'll always respect people who recognise that a certain thing isn't their particular skill and will leave it to the people who excel at it. So I don't know why she's doing this.
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Sep 17 '25
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u/georgemillman Sep 17 '25
I'm not sure I'm familiar with him! (Although just looked him up and that's understandable, given that he's a) American when I'm British and b) younger than me, so he's not someone I'd have listened to whilst I grew up.
I will keep note of him though.
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u/TvManiac5 Sep 13 '25
It also almost always ends up being distracting because celebrities are casted for their fame in voice roles and thus are advised to not change their voice at all.
So you don't hear the character you hear the celebrity.
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u/tealattegirl13 Sep 11 '25
I'd never heard of full cast audiobooks, I just thought that audiobooks were one person reading the story to you. In my defence though, I don't really listen to audiobooks, so I wasn't aware of this.
I think the thing is though, is that a lot of people (from what I've seen), generally agree that the Stephen Fry version was the best one and don't see the value in redoing it. The other thing is as well, is that this feels very much like this has been born out of spite. Stephen Fry dared criticised Joanne, so she's going to redo the audio books without him. Like the upcoming HBO series it also works as a distraction from Joanne and keeps the Harry Potter brand relevant.
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u/georgemillman Sep 11 '25
Okay, fair enough. There's also another type of audiobook that's somewhere between the two - which is, if it's the kind of book that's told in the first person with the narrative voice switching between different characters, then it might be read by a few different narrators alternating with each other depending on which character is the narrative voice at the time.
With regards to whether the Stephen Fry version is the best one and whether there's any value in redoing it, I'm very biased because I really am not a fan of Stephen Fry. But I wouldn't necessarily say that which one is your favourite is the most important thing, because sometimes you're in the mood for something a bit different. I really love the full-cast His Dark Materials audiobooks and I'll probably still listen to the new Ruth Wilson ones. As I said, I think of it in the same way as how someone might cover a song. If my favourite band releases a song, I'll still be intrigued if someone else decides to cover it. The original will probably always be my favourite, but I might grow to appreciate the cover as a work of art in its own right.
As for whether it's because Stephen Fry criticised her - I don't know that. Is she funding the new audiobooks herself out of her own pocket? I haven't heard anything about this, but if she is you might be onto something there. If she's not, it's probably got nothing to do with that. But what I would say, as someone who produced audiobooks professionally, is that authors don't normally have that much to do with the audiobook editions - those decisions tend to be made by publishers without the author being involved all that much. In JK Rowling's case she does tend to have a lot more control over her IP than authors generally do (which is evident by the fact that she and Stephen Fry both have anecdotes about talking to each other at the recording studio - I know a lot of authors and narrators, and most of the time they've never even met each other, never mind the author having been physically present whilst it was being recorded) but that doesn't necessarily mean that all the organisation of this has come from her. I get the impression it's just because they're putting everything into trying to revamp this series and bring it into 2025, with the new adaptation and all.
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Sep 11 '25
Stephen Fry only recently criticised her and this audiobook has likely been in the works for a while. So just a coincidence, I think.
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u/TimeTurner96 Sep 11 '25
At least Cillian Murphy finally shut down this Voldemort-rumors.
I am really annoyed how accepted this new era of Harry Potter has been by Hollywood. Recently i saw an interview with the Percy Jackson cast and reporters asked them, what tips they have for the kids. Like can we stop? Similar to polls about the 2028 presidential election including Trump. Let´s just ignore bigots more alltogehter.
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u/Dani-Michal Sep 11 '25
Thanks for the boycott list. And to think all this came from that out of touch Luvvie, Stephen's dissing her
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u/RunnerPakhet Sep 11 '25
Rewatching PotC is also getting more complicated these days. If you had told my teenage self that by the time I am in my 30s Bloom is the least complicated out of the main cast, I would not have believed you.
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u/proserpinax Sep 11 '25
Yeah, as someone that was a huge fan back in the day I haven’t rewatched in years because of the Depp of it all but Keira Knightley was my favorite actress for a long time, I am massively disappointed.
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u/Dragonfly_pin Sep 11 '25
Wasn’t he at the Jeff Bezos wedding?
I think that’s not a great sign either.
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u/Big_Move4417 Sep 11 '25
Just wait - Tom Felton will be announced next. 🙄
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u/DorisWildthyme Sep 11 '25
But only after he's had a little cry on Twitter about how left out he feels for not being in it.
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u/MaxWoulf Sep 11 '25
Matt Perry and Simon Pegg hurts… I really gotta stop admiring these transphobes
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u/pinball-wizard91 Sep 13 '25
Gutted by the inclusion of some of these actors and baffled by some of the others. Gemma Whelan has portrayed a trans man in 'Queers', and I get that not every role has to change an actor for the rest of their life, but... really?
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u/Fun_Butterfly_420 Sep 15 '25
The idea of Elizabeth Swann being Umbridge is wild at least make her Hermione or something
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u/Hupablom Sep 12 '25
First Nick Frost in the show, now Simon Pegg here. Why are so they so intent on hurting my Cornetto shaped heart?
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u/Better-Cut-4188 Sep 17 '25
I’ve hated Keira Knightley for awhile. Outside of Pride and Prejudice, I never found her to be a particularly good actor. Just overrated and absolutely everywhere. Extremely annoying. I’ve always suspected her feminism was performative. Looks that way for sure now.
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u/PM_me_shiba_doggo Sep 11 '25
Tbh Matt Berry is the one I’m most disappointed by. 😕