John Lithgow, the freshly minted Dumbledore for HBO’s interminable Harry Potter reboot, has once more attempted to thread the needle between principle and paycheck. Speaking at the Rotterdam Film Festival while promoting his latest venture Jimpa, the 80-year-old actor addressed the persistent, progressive clamor over J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender issues. “I take the subject extremely seriously,” he declared.
“She has created this amazing canon for young people and it has jumped into the consciousness of the society. It’s about good versus evil, kindness versus cruelty. I find her views ironic and inexplicable.”
The phrase lands with practiced delicacy, a polite tsk-tsk at the author’s inconvenient biology-based opinions while he prepares to inhabit her most beloved wizard for the next eight years. Lithgow noted he has never met Rowling and insisted she is “not really involved in this production at all.” The production team, he assured listeners, consists of “remarkable” people. Convenient separation of creator from creation, a favorite maneuver in today’s enlightened entertainment industry.
He admitted the decision weighed on him. “It was a hard decision. It made me uncomfortable and unhappy that people insisted I walk away from the job. I chose not to do that.” Pressure mounted from fans and friends urging boycott, yet the lucrative contract proved stronger than conscience. Lithgow even joked about the longevity clause: signed at 80, committed until 88, a written guarantee of immortality via wizard robes.
The canon itself, he argued, remains pure. “In ‘Potter’ canon you see no trace of transphobic sensitivity. She’s written this mediation of kindess and acceptance. And Dumbledore is a beautiful role.” Thus the books preach tolerance while their author defends women’s single-sex spaces, a contradiction Lithgow labels ironic yet somehow insufficient to forego the gig.
Such statements arrive amid broader cultural fatigue with Hollywood’s selective moral posturing. The industry that once rallied against perceived intolerance now routinely distances itself from inconvenient creators while cashing their checks. Lithgow’s discomfort appears genuine enough, yet it dissolves under the weight of a multi-season commitment and the prestige of a “beautiful role.”
Of course actors want their principles loud and their paychecks louder. They crave the applause for virtue while clutching the contract that keeps the lights on. In the end, the wizard hat fits too comfortably to cast aside.
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English (US) · 