Daniel Radcliffe is disappointed by J.K. Rowling’s repeated anti-transgender comments.
Speaking with The Atlantic about his role in the Broadway production of Merrily We Roll Along, the Swiss Army Man star, who rose to fame as the titular boy wizard in eight movie adaptations of Rowling’s Harry Potter series, commented on the author’s controversial anti-trans opinions.
“It makes me really sad, ultimately,” Radcliffe said, adding that he’s had no direct contact with Rowling since her anti-transgender rants. “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.”
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Reps for Rowling did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment.
After Rowling posted rhetoric that many deemed transphobic in 2020, Radcliffe penned a statement supporting the trans community via The Trevor Project. “I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between J.K. Rowling and myself, but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what’s important right now,” Radcliffe wrote at the time. “Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”
Radcliffe told The Atlantic that he wrote that statement in order to reassure fans that Rowling’s views do not represent the entirety of the Harry Potter creative team. “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,” he said. “I wanted to try and help people that had been negatively affected by the comments… and to say that if those are Jo’s views, then they are not the views of everybody associated with the Potter franchise.”
Radcliffe also noted that although he’s grateful to Rowling for helping launch his career, he doesn’t think he or his costars should feel beholden to supporting all of her opinions. “There’s a version of ‘Are these three kids ungrateful brats?’ that [the press] have always wanted to write, and they were finally able to. So, good for them, I guess,” he said. “Jo, 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.”
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Rowling made headlines earlier this month when she responded to a social media user who stated that they were “waiting for Dan [Radcliffe] and Emma [Watson] to give you a very public apology … safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them.” “Not safe, I’m afraid,” Rowling replied. “Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”
When The Atlantic asked Radcliffe about this particular incident, he responded, “I will continue to support the rights of all LGBTQ people, and have no further comment than that.”
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