J.K. Rowling is weighing in on the first look at the HBO’s Harry Potter series.
The trailer for season 1 arrived on Wednesday to great fanfare. And you can count the Wizarding World creator as one of its champions.
“It’s going to be incredible,” the author tweeted in response to a Potter supporter. “I’m so happy with it.”
Not every response to the trailer has been as positive as Rowling’s, however, and her post presented a new venue for racist objections to Paapa Essiedu playing Hogwarts potions master Severus Snape in the series.
Credit: Lara Cornell/HBO
Essiedu, who is English of Ghanian descent, recently opened up about the “abuse” he endured after being cast as Snape, who is written as white in Rowling’s novel and was played by Alan Rickman in the Harry Potter movies.
“I’ve been told, ‘Quit, or I’ll murder you,'” he said in an interview with The Times. “The reality is that if I look at Instagram I will see somebody saying, ‘I’m going to come to your house and kill you. While I hope I’ll be okay, nobody should have to encounter this for doing their job.”
HBO has put in place “serious security” for the cast in response to the death threats and reaction, according to network boss Casey Bloys.
“With all actors on any kind of big IP shows — and this is obviously one of those where you’ve got passionate fans, people with a lot of opinions — it can get scary in places,” he said. “So for any show like that, we anticipated it and tried to have training, best practices in terms of social media and how to handle it. And obviously we’ve got a serious security team. So unfortunately, it was something that we thought might happen and we just try to be as careful as we can.”
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Rowling’s involvement with the series is not without its own controversy, given criticism of her anti-trans views. John Litghow, who plays Albus Dumbledore, said that he considered quitting the show over it, and Essiedu previously signed an open letter standing in solidarity with the trans community after the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a motion that Rowling supported, which sought to tie the legal definition of womanhood to biological sex.
“I don’t have the power to sack an actor from the series,” she said of speculation that Essiedu or others might be in jeopardy of being fired. “I don’t believe in taking away people’s jobs or livelihoods because they hold legally protected beliefs that differ from mine.”
Harry Potter premieres this Christmas on HBO.
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