Actor John Lithgow, who plays Dumbledore in the upcoming Harry Potter series for HBO, recently hinted that the show will seemingly be making significant changes to J.K. Rowling’s novels.
During an appearance at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where he was promoting a gay propaganda film called Jinpa, Lithgow explained why he joined the Harry Potter production as Dumbledore given J.K. Rowling’s views on gender ideology.
As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Lithgow said, “I take the subject and the issue extremely seriously. J.K. Rowling has created this amazing canon for young people, young kids’ literature that has jumped into the consciousness of society. Young and old people love Harry Potter and the Harry Potter stories. It’s so much about acceptance. It’s about good versus evil. It’s about kindness versus cruelty. It’s deeply felt.”
“I find it ironic and somewhat inexplicable that Rowling has expressed such views. I’ve read about them, and I’ve never met her,” Lithgow added.
Next, he hinted at the production making significant changes to Rowling’s novels. He said, “She’s not really involved in this production at all. The people who are re-adapting Harry Potter and turning it into an eight-year-long TV series are remarkable. … These are people I really want to work with.”
“Of course, it upsets me when people are vehemently opposed to my having anything to do with this,” he asserted. “But if you read through the Harry Potter canon, you see absolutely no trace of transphobic sensibility. She has written this great meditation on kindness and empathy and acceptance, which is why it’s so strange to me.”
Again, he hinted at changes to Rowling’s novels and specifically to his character, “Dumbledore is a beautiful role. There’s so much more to it than I even realized, mainly because of these people who are creating the series.”
“So it was a hard decision on the basis of that [controversy], and it made me very uncomfortable and unhappy that people were actively insisting that I walk away from this job. But I chose not to do that,” he concluded.
Lithgow’s comments are both a tad surprising and at the same time they are not.
First, his claim that Rowling is not really involved in the production is contrary to nearly all public facing comments made by Rowling as well as HBO and its employees.
When the show was first announced in April 2023, Rowling stated, “Max’s commitment to preserving the integrity of my books is important to me, and I’m looking forward to being part of this new adaptation which will allow for a degree of depth and detail only afforded by a long form television series.”
In November 2024, HBO boss Casey Bloys shared how involved Rowling was, at least in finding writers and directors for the series. As reported by Variety he shared that she was “very, very involved in the process selecting the writer and the director.”
About a week later, IndieWire reported that Bloys also shared that Rowling had “been fairly involved in the process of selecting the writer and director.”
He added, “I imagine she’ll have opinions on casting.”
In June last year, Rowling shared that she was not writing the series, but had “worked closely with the extremely talented writers.”
As far as changes being made to the series, this is not surprising. Despite HBO promising it would be a “faithful adaptation,” when it first announced the series, the company announced it was race-swapping Severus Snape with actor Paapa Essiedu.
It's going to be more "propaganda." Thank you. I'm out.
I only think one thing: Netflix. Warner Bros is feeding John Lithgow these lines, because their desperate to get sell off to Netflix.