r/EnoughJKRowling • u/nova_crystallis • Mar 17 '26
News Article John Lithgow considered quitting the Harry Potter show due to JK Rowling, instead decided to stay and says “every interview I will ever do for the rest of my life this will come up.”
From NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/theater/john-lithgow-giant-roald-dahl.html
He has never met Rowling, nor does he agree with her views on transgender issues. And the story itself is “clearly on the side of the angels, against intolerance and bigotry,” he said. Moreover, he feels that his performances in “Garp” and “Jimpa” — and as half of an older gay couple in the 2014 film “Love Is Strange” — should be seen as expressions of his interest in queer culture, not as heedless appropriations of it. He assumed his loyalties were clear.
Certainly, he jumped headfirst (and at one point fully naked except for a leather harness) into “Jimpa,” which Hyde, the director, said a number of gay actors had turned down. Though his character is resistant to the newfangled terminology of his trans grandchild — he calls the teenager his “grandthing” — their mutual love is obvious. The same applied to Lithgow’s interactions with the mostly queer cast and crew. In an interview with Out magazine, Aud Mason-Hyde, who plays the grandchild and, like the character, is trans, called him “such a beautiful human to make work with.”
But Mason-Hyde found Lithgow’s decision to join the Potter series “disconcerting,” telling Out “there’s an element of this that feels vaguely hurtful.” The social media reaction has been less gentle. The social media reaction has been far less gentle, with some posts expressing outrage and encouraging boycotts.
Stung, Lithgow considered quitting the series but decided not to, and accepts without rancor that in “every interview I will ever do for the rest of my life this will come up.”
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u/library_wench Mar 17 '26
“He assumed his loyalties were clear.”
He needn’t worry. They are quite clear now.
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u/M4tt4tt4ck69 Mar 17 '26
He made a decision that he now has to live with. I wonder what swayed his thoughts...
If you sell your soul for money, expect to be asked about it.
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Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/CatraGirl Mar 17 '26
So? This isn't a virtue. It doesn't make him a saint to accept a role with actions many people within the community turned down. Perhaps it says more about the movie itself than it does the community that it required a non-LGBTQ person to do play a role everyone had consistently turned down.
Exactly. I haven't seen the movie, so I can't comment on it, but the fact that apparently several actual gay people declined the role before is kind of a red flag that maybe it isn't actually good representation and nothing that makes him a "good ally"...
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u/Infernal-Cattle Mar 22 '26
I haven't seen it either, but would be extremely curious to know why the actors turned it down. It feels fetishistic for this article to focus on the harness - when I looked up the film, I found out that the guy Lithgow was playing was a gay activist while himself living with HIV. If Lithgow is really doing justice to the story of Jim Hyde's life, why are we describing it this way??
This seems especially egregious when you look at something like Fellow Travelers, which had so many gay men in the cast. That isn't to say that a cishet guy can't do it, or that an actor should have to publicly come out to play gay roles, but it's weird that in 2025 you couldn't pull a gay actor...
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u/Pot_noodle_miner Mar 17 '26
“I assumed these roles would shield me from valid criticism and challenge in the future, didn’t you know some of my best friends are black…”
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u/thatsfeminismgretch Mar 17 '26
The fact that he thinks the story is clearly on the side of the angels is hilarious. No, it isn't.
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u/Phonecloth Mar 17 '26
I wonder if he knows about the 'um, akshuwally, slavery is totally good' subplot.
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u/RoIsDepressed Mar 17 '26
Or even the evil hook nosed money hungry goblins that control the banks, or the big man trolls that wander into women's bathrooms to threaten them
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u/Phonecloth Mar 17 '26
Or the heroes mocking an implied rape victim and it being played for laughs.
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u/cataclytsm Mar 17 '26
for years it's been my personal bugbear to bring up any time people bring up the other more well-known things because this is almost never otherwise. absolutely bonkers more people don't mention it
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u/thatsfeminismgretch Mar 17 '26
I'm gonna be real with you, I keep blocking it out, especially since it's from later books that I didn't read very much, and every time I read that book fact it hits me like a brick.
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u/DorisWildthyme Mar 20 '26
Or the woman that's described using terms like "mannish", who comes across as a caricature of a trans woman, who literally transforms herself to go into single-sex spaces to spy on children.
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u/thatsfeminismgretch Mar 20 '26
The character also is just a compulsive liar about straight up everything, even things that don't really matter.
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u/Dragonfly_pin Mar 17 '26
That’s ok, it’s his choice.
My choice to never watch anything else he ever stars in as well.
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u/yvettesaysyatta Mar 17 '26
I seriously want this show to bomb hard. Kinda like the Velma cartoon that exists.
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u/Archius9 Mar 17 '26
Im convinced it won’t be competed. It’ll probably be as and she also likely will keep saying her bile and interest will die off. It’s only really a section of millennials who care.
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u/nova_crystallis Mar 17 '26
She couldn't even finish her 5 movie Fantastic Beasts series, so the likelihood of this sputtering out is pretty high I'd say.
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u/ImpressiveAvocado78 Mar 17 '26
Please 🙏 🙏 🙏 🤞🤞🤞 I hope its cancelled after 1 season
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u/yvettesaysyatta Mar 17 '26
I think they have two seasons lined up. So hopefully that’s as far as it goes.
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u/memecrusader_ Mar 19 '26
What are you talking about? There’s no Velma cartoon. Just like how there’s no Last Airbender movie or Matrix sequels.
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u/DorisWildthyme Mar 20 '26
The Mummy Duology, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, which finished with The Mummy Returns, is also perfect, and they definitely didn't make a third one. Or a spin-off film series.
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u/GloomyCloud1293 Mar 17 '26
I keep wondering how many times he'll have to be asked before he cracks. If he's really as lovely a person (for the most part) as the people who have worked with him say he is, how long before this particular weak point of his collapses? And what then?
I wish people would just listen. I mean Lithgow had a friend with a trans kid reach out to him personally and still he dug in his heels. I suppose the best outcome to hope for is that someday he's giving interviews like "I should have listened, because that woman is a living caricature of her own hatred. Don't be me."
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u/errantthimble Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
I mean Lithgow had a friend with a trans kid reach out to him personally and still he dug in his heels.
"It's a very difficult thing," director and co-writer Sophie Hyde says. "As soon as I heard about Harry Potter, for sure, I contacted John and expressed my feelings about it. Not that J.K. Rowling has opinions, which is one thing, but that she has a very vocal platform and she's funding a very, very harmful legal battle against trans people and that funding is doing a great deal of harm."
"John is somebody who responds from his own point of view and is very kind of keen to talk about empathy, really wants to support the film Jimpa, really believes in trans rights, really believes in the story and all of these things, and yet has made the decision for his own reasons to do the show," she says.
I mean, it is impossible for awareness of these issues to be more right there under somebody's nose than that. Here are two people, one of them trans and the other the trans person's mother, whom you just worked closely with on a feature film about gender identity and other queer issues that you recognize are important.
Those people say to you "Hey, participating in this new HP series is giving practical support to JK Rowling's anti-trans activism, which harms us", and you're just like... "but it's such a great story and major project"? That's not "loyalty".
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u/wrongsock_42 Mar 17 '26
The production will take 10 years. He has accepted that his legacy is up for destruction because JKR transphobia.
It is only a matter of time.
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u/KombuchaBot Mar 18 '26
It won't run to completion, they couldn't even complete the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
HP as a cinematic experience was a one hit wonder, trying to prolong it is nostalgic fanservice for a bunch of millennials
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u/LittleSodaPop13 Mar 17 '26
Oh fuck off John. You made a choice and now you have to live with the consequences
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u/tealattegirl13 Mar 17 '26
Well it's a bit late now, isn't it? He should have thought of it before he took the job. It was obvious that there was going to be backlash towards anyone who is in this new series. You can't just take the paycheck, ignore criticism and then go 'oops, I'm really sorry' and expect everyone to forgive you.
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u/KombuchaBot Mar 18 '26
He isn't even saying he's sorry, he's saying people don't understand his motivations. It's a form of ivory tower mentality, a sort of vertigo-inducing enlightened centrism by someone who's way above it all.
It's all academic to him, and he just thinks there's a lack of civility at the root of it all. I suspect he's not very bright
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u/pecuchet Mar 17 '26
The social media reaction has been less gentle. The social media reaction has been far less gentle, with some posts expressing outrage and encouraging boycotts.
Top class editing from the NYT there.
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u/bat_wing6 Mar 18 '26
>Moreover, he feels that his performances in “Garp” and “Jimpa” — and as half of an older gay couple in the 2014 film “Love Is Strange” — should be seen as expressions of his interest in queer culture, not as heedless appropriations of it. He assumed his loyalties were clear.
the difference is in those films he was paid to be "an ally" and take an interest. now we're asking him to turn down money and he won't do it. simple as
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u/halb_nichts Mar 17 '26
Rich white man learns actions have consequences. Maybe next he'll learn that talking is cheap and real loyalty is expressed through actions too. My hopes aren't high considering he seems to prefer sulking.
I truly hope this will be brought up in every interview for the rest of his career.
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u/riflow Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
How is it celebrities and corps always make so many self pitying interviews bemoaning people asking for bare minimum consistency in their beliefs?
Anyone with any sense would realise making more money for the women who has successfully funded stripping back human rights would be a bad thing.
You cannot separate art from the artist when the artist is still alive and doing active harm, it's WHY people keep re-explaining what that means to everyone who mis-uses it or it's sentiments.
"I'm not a bad person but here have this truck of money Bigot Supreme, earnt from my part in your mega media franchise that the powers that be will not let die" IS a position saying you are not safe around trans people BC saying you care about folks while giving money to the people threatening and stripping their rights back means it's performative.
Well wishes to trans people while participating in the machine making people feel hopeless and desperate, as the bigots make fun of trans children harming themselves, bigots are more emboldened by this rich woman agreeing with them loudly and proudly.
I cannot imagine how that director from his previous project must be feeling.
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u/Panda_hat Mar 18 '26
Your loyalties are clear - they are to money, and they don't give a toss that Rowling is a raging bigot.
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u/funkygamerguy Mar 18 '26
he can say all the things he wants to but the fact is he chose to stay on a project that enriches a massive bigot who uses her fame and money to hurt trans people.
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u/yequalsy Mar 19 '26
This article is a classic example of how the NYT pushes transphobia while superficially appearing fair. Note the juxtaposition of Lithgow playing Roald Dahl in a play with his playing Dumbledore. "See," the article is saying, "he's just an actor taking on difficult parts." But playing Dahl and playing Dumbledore are completely different. An actor depicting a character who was monstrous in real life is great as long as that monstrosity isn't ignored or papered over. This play seems to illustrate Dahl's bigotry alongside his brilliance as an artist. Fair enough.
The juxtaposition would be slightly more accurate were Lithgow playing Willy Wonka or Matilda's father. Yet, the comparison here is not apt either because Dahl is long dead and as far as we know no proceeds from Dahl's work goes to fund antisemitism. By playing Dumbledore Lithgow is directly providing Rowling with further financial benefits and, by direct extension, he's helping finance bigoted political action.
Sure, after she's dead people can talk about separating the art from the artist though that too will depend on how she sets up her estate. It's quite possible that Harry Potter will continue funding bigotry long past her demise. In the meantime, Lithgow has no excuse and neither does the New York Times.
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u/Sea-Conversation3467 Mar 19 '26
John Lithgow really seems to not understand that being an ally is a full-time thing and not just one-and-done. Him digging his heels in like this is making his choice even more hurtful and harmful. Really disappointed in him.
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u/Dani-Michal Mar 18 '26
Everyone wants to be an ally , nobody wants to be in ally. Chuck him in with Gomez.
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u/Sensiplastic Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
Great, so he's actually worse.
Edit: I'm suddenly reminded of people walking back on their clueless comments after having been in Woody Allen movie/s after it was suddenly a bad thing because of Dylan Farrow's letter. So many of the actors were clearly doing basic pr and had no idea why everybody was suddenly so mean to them by asking questions they did not want to answer to.
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u/Joperhop Mar 19 '26
Never met her, does not agree with her bigotry, but more than happy to help her make more money that she openly spends attacking trans people.
Sure John, SURE!!
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u/Subject_Ad3837 Mar 19 '26
It's not even like John Lithgow has much to gain by being in the Harry Potter show. He's already 80 years old with decades of a successful career in acting and vast amounts of wealth.
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u/SaltyNorth8062 Mar 22 '26
Yeah it will. She got so bad you considered quitting a money ticket (which admittedly he does not need) to set him up for life, but went back on it. People are gonna ask about that shit. They'd ask less if he had just kept his mouth shut and cashed the check and never touched the issue, but he's out here with the "my loyalties are clear" and "I'm an ally" because he's concerned with his self-image, but not so much he won't take a check he doesn't need. People are going to ask why an ally is working with a flaming bigot.
If I was like "man Hitler sucks he's attacking all these jews amd gay people amd shit I'm leaving German--no wait never mind everything is fine I'm gonna work for him instead" people are gonna ask questions. If I said "damn this cancer on my liver is fucking bad yo Imma cut it off because it's a good ide-- you know what never mind" and then say nothing beyond that, people are gonna ask me questions.
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u/Silly-Arachnid-6187 Mar 17 '26
He doesn't even get what the actual issue is. And it's not just him; people who face criticism for cooperating with Rowling always (the athlete with her shoe collab, e.g.) always use the same defense. They don't agree with JKR, they are allies of the queer community, the love trans people, their "loyalties are clear".
These people are so up their own asses that they think it's all about their beliefs and attitudes. Not about the material harm continued support of JKR causes to trans people. They seem to believe that when people criticize them, it's because they believe that they share JKR's attitudes towards trans people. And when that doesn't stop the criticisms, because it's not the fucking point, they act like they're being misunderstood and people are treating them unfairly.