Apparently Lithgow is really good at separating the art from the artist, even after receiving a text from “a very good friend who is the mother of a trans child.” The artist in question, of course, recently spent tens of thousands of dollars to support a legal challenge that resulted in the U.K. court ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. Rowling’s anti-transgender crusade didn’t factor into Lithgow’s decision making; in fact, he “thought, why is this a factor at all?” Far from distancing the author from the project—for which she’s said to be closely involved—Lithgow says he wonders “how JK Rowling has absorbed it.” (She celebrated the court ruling with a cocktail and a cigar on her superyacht, so there’s your answer.) “I suppose at a certain point I’ll meet her and I’m curious to talk to her,” the Conclave star muses.
Prior to being shipped off to the Wizarding World, Lithgow is doing a run as Roald Dahl (another controversial author whose legacy was tainted by antisemitism) in the U.K. play Giant. He says, “It’s so interesting to me at this moment in my life, when I’ve always loved entertaining kids, that I should be engaged with these writers — JK Rowling and Roald Dahl — who are geniuses at entertaining kids but have had crises among adults.” (Speaking of kids, Rowling once lambasted an online critic with the response, “There are no trans kids. No child is ‘born in the wrong body’. There are only adults like you, prepared to sacrifice the health of minors to bolster your belief in an ideology that ends up wrecking more harm than lobotomies and false memory syndrome combined.”) Lithgow notes that “No one complained when I agreed to play Dahl” (in a play that fully explores the complicated and problematic aspects of his character, and with which the long-dead author has no involvement) “but I’ve received so many messages about JK Rowling” (in a project that does not interrogate her controversial views, but will certainly put a lot of money in her pocket). “Isn’t that odd?” he asks. To that we say: not really!
