Bel Powley, cast as Aunt Petunia in HBO's upcoming Harry Potter TV series, told The Telegraph she "strongly disagrees" with creator J.K. Rowling's views on gender, the latest actor on the project to distance herself from the woman who wrote the books.
Powley, 34, made the remarks in an interview published Monday, months before the series is set to premiere on Christmas Day 2026. She did not elaborate on which specific statements by Rowling she objected to, but she offered a broad declaration of support for transgender activists.
"I think that the trans community deserves safety and dignity and respect and total acceptance," Powley told The Telegraph. She also said she grew up reading the Harry Potter novels and loves "magic and spookiness", framing her participation in the show as a childhood dream rather than an endorsement of Rowling's public positions.
Powley is not the first cast member to put daylight between herself and the franchise's creator. In May 2025, Rowling published an essay responding to several Harry Potter actors, including Paapa Essiedu, who plays Severus Snape in the new series, along with Eddie Redmayne and Katie Leung, after they signed a pro-trans open letter. That letter followed a UK Supreme Court ruling that the legal terms "woman" and "sex" refer strictly to biological women and biological sex.
Rowling, 61, did not hold back. She described the signatories as "back-stabbing colleagues" who she said were "motivated by fear." Page Six reported it reached out to Rowling's representative for comment on Powley's latest remarks but received no response.
John Lithgow, the 80-year-old Oscar nominee cast as Dumbledore, took a different tack. In an April appearance on the New Yorker Radio Hour, Lithgow said Rowling's views had been "twisted and misrepresented." He acknowledged that people urged him to walk away from the project but said he refused.
Lithgow told the program:
"I just felt the reasons to do it were much, much stronger than the reasons to protest against what Rowling has done and said."
He also noted he "does disagree with much of" Rowling's beliefs, though he did not specify which ones.
The recurring dynamic is hard to miss. Actors line up to star in a franchise built entirely on Rowling's imagination, collect the career boost that comes with a global HBO production, and then publicly repudiate the author who created the world they are inhabiting on screen. Rowling remains an executive producer on the series. She is not a silent partner or a distant rights-holder. She is actively involved in the show these actors auditioned to join.
Powley herself acknowledged the tension, if only glancingly. "I love 'Harry Potter.' I grew up with the books," she said, before pivoting to her disagreement. That is the formula: praise the product, denounce the producer.
Emma Watson, who played Hermione in the original film series, has had her own public disagreements with Rowling over transgender issues. The pattern now extends from the movie franchise into its television successor, with cast members treating their objections to Rowling as a kind of prerequisite press-tour ritual.
What often goes unmentioned in these disputes is the legal backdrop. The UK Supreme Court ruled that the terms "woman" and "sex" in law refer to biological women and biological sex, a decision that aligned with the position Rowling has argued publicly for years. The pro-trans open letter that triggered Rowling's May 2025 essay came as a direct response to that ruling.
Rowling did not retreat. She published her rebuttal, named the actors who signed the letter, and accused them of cowardice. Whether one agrees with her or not, the author has been consistent. The same cannot be said for performers who accept roles on her show and then treat disagreement with her as a badge of moral seriousness.
The HBO series features a sprawling cast. Dominic McLaughlin plays Harry Potter, Alastair Stout plays Ron Weasley, Arabella Stanton plays Hermione Granger, Janet McTeer plays Minerva McGonagall, and Nick Frost plays Hagrid. Whether more cast members will feel compelled to weigh in on Rowling's views before the Christmas 2026 premiere remains an open question.
Disagreeing with the boss is every worker's right. Doing it on a press tour for her show, while collecting a paycheck from her franchise, tells you less about conviction than about which opinions are professionally safe to hold.
