John Lithgow calls JK Rowling a ‘deeply empathetic person’ while discussing trans views

John Lithgow has called controversial Harry Potter author JK Rowling a “deeply empathetic person” while discussing her views on trans people.

Lithgow joined other past Tony Award winners like Nathan Lane and Rose Byrne in a 4 June roundtable interview hosted by The Hollywood Reporter. The actor is currently a frontrunner for this year’s Best Actor gong for his turn as Roald Dahl in Giant.

When asked if the play, which has prompted a number of think pieces and debates, has made him think differently about Rowling and her views, he said that he takes the issue “very seriously”.

Lithgow is set to appear in HBO’s upcoming Harry Potter reboot series as the headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore. He went on to say how he was offered the role shortly after the Sundance premiere of Jimpa, a film where he plays the grandfather of a non-binary teenager.

“To my mind, [Jimpa] is the best and the most warm-hearted, open-hearted and positive creation of any film or play on this subject, in total support of kindness and acceptance on this issue, and saw a wonderful opening premiere at Sundance,” he said.

“I then got offered Dumbledore, and only months later did I really understand the depth of this issue in a lot of people’s minds,” he admitted.

“JK Rowling created a fantastic canon for young people. I feel about entertaining young people just the way Roald Dahl did, and the Potter stories are beautiful, Dumbledore is a beautiful character – gay, incidentally, or not so incidentally – and it’s a series of stories and episodes that are all about empathy and love compared with cruelty and hate.”

‘I just disagree with some things she seems to believe’

Lithgow went on to say that there is “great value” in what Rowling created with the series and that he “[respects] her for it”.

“The other thing is, I still have not met her,” he continued. “I certainly will. She’s not directly involved with production, at least as far as I’ve experienced it. But I think for the most part, she’s a deeply empathetic person, or she couldn’t have created this. I just disagree with some things she seems to believe.”

Lithgow received backlash from the trans community and their allies when it was announced he had accepted a role in the Harry Potter series. Much of the criticism came from the fact that the actor famously played a trans woman in the 1982 Robin Williams film The World According to Garp.

Aud Mason-Hyde, the non-binary actor who played Lithgow’s grandchild in Jimpa, called his acceptance of the role “hurtful” in an interview with Out in February.

“It was definitely a difficult moment,” the young actor said. And while they didn’t want to offer a take on Lithgow’s reasoning for taking the role, Mason-Hyde said it was “a strange decision, for sure”. They then called it “disconcerting”.

The film’s director, Sophie Hyde – and Mason-Hyde’s real-life mother – added: “It’s a very difficult thing. As soon as I heard about Harry Potter, for sure, I contacted John and expressed my feelings about it.”

Rowling confirmed last year that she had donated to For Women Scotland, the group that helped to fund a legal case on the 2010 Equality Act’s definition of a woman and sex, resulting in a Supreme Court ruling that the definitions relate to “biological women” and “biological sex”.

“That funding is doing a great deal of harm,” Hyde continued. She went on to say that Lithgow is someone who “really believes in trans rights”, adding to the confusion over why he took the Harry Potter role given the association with Rowling.

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