“I hadn’t intended to show you this. I’m not even sure I should,” Lithgow, 79, says, adjusting his black-rimmed spectacles as he scrolls through his phone. He shows me a text from a friend, a link to an article titled An Open Letter to John Lithgow: Please Walk Away from Harry Potter. The article claims that JK Rowling is “anti-trans” and “attacked trans kids directly, saying ‘There are no trans kids. No child “is born in the wrong body”.’” Meanwhile, over on Lithgow’s normally cheerful Instagram account, there are endless comments from people telling him the same thing — that to act in something connected to Rowling is analogous to donning a Ku Klux Klan hood.
Had Lithgow expected this? “No, absolutely not. Of course, it was a big decision because it’s probably the last major role I’ll play. It’s an eight-year commitment so I was just thinking about mortality and that this is a very good winding-down role.” It has not escaped his notice that Richard Harris died while playing the wizard in the films, and Harris’s substitute, Michael Gambon, went not long after hanging up the cloak. But the only concern he had about the fan base, he says, was whether they would accept an American as Dumbledore. But before it was even announced that he had the role he received a text from “a very good friend who is the mother of a trans child, and that was the canary in the coalmine”.
Lithgow has played trans and gay characters in the past, but his eyes widen with bemusement at the rage Rowling inspires. “I thought, why is this a factor at all? I wonder how JK Rowling has absorbed it. I suppose at a certain point I’ll meet her and I’m curious to talk to her.” So the criticism didn’t put him off? “Oh, heavens no.”
Meanwhile, Lithgow is still puzzling on something. “No one complained when I agreed to play Dahl, but I’ve received so many messages about JK Rowling. Isn’t that odd?”
