Warning: This article contains discussion of trans issues which some readers may find distressing.
Bel Powley has revealed she feared her career ‘might be affected’ by taking part in the new Harry Potter television adaptation because of JK Rowling’s involvement as an executive producer.
Powley, who is set to play Petunia Dursley, said she had reservations before production got underway. The actor, who first drew major attention in 2015’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl, is now due to appear in the series with John Lithgow, Janet McTeer, Paapa Essiedu and Nick Frost.
Even though she grew up loving the franchise, Powley said she ‘strongly disagrees with JK Rowling’s views on gender’. Speaking with the Telegraph, the 34-year-old said: “I think that the trans community deserve safety and dignity and respect and total acceptance.”
She added: “But I love Harry Potter. I grew up with the books. I am from that first generation of readers and, again, I love magic and spookiness.”
Rowling’s opinions on gender and sexuality have faced heavy scrutiny in recent years, although she has continued to reject claims that her views are ‘transphobic’. Her creative and financial ties to the upcoming Harry Potter series have also led some people in the LGBTQ+ community to push for a boycott.
She is not alone among the cast in acknowledging discomfort around the issue. Lithgow, who will play Albus Dumbledore, previously called some of Rowling’s remarks ‘ironic and inexplicable’ and said he had been ‘urged to walk away’ from the project, but chose not to.
Speaking with The New Yorker, he said: “The reasons to do it were much, much stronger than the reasons to protest against what Rowling has done and said.” He also said: “I do disagree with much of it, much of it I think has been twisted and misrepresented, and she has doubled down on it at her own cost.”
Nick Frost, who has been cast as Hagrid in the series, also addressed the subject while speaking with the Observer. He said: “She’s allowed her opinion and I’m allowed mine – they just don’t align in any way, shape or form.” He added: “We shouldn’t just hope it will go away, because it makes it easier. Maybe we should educate ourselves.”
Rowling’s views on gender, particularly in relation to transgender people, have disappointed many critics online. In one post on X, she wrote: “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”
She has also described the use of hormone therapy as ‘a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function’.
The series is set to premiere on Christmas Day 2026 on HBO and HBO Max, with eight episodes covering the events of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The eight-episode first season will be the first in a planned decade-long adaptation, with each subsequent season based on one of Rowling’s seven books.
Representatives for JK Rowling have been contacted for comment.