Topics: News, UK News, Harry Potter, Film and TV, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson
Daniel Radcliffe has defended the actor who will take on the eponymous role in the upcoming reboot of Harry Potter.
Dominic McLaughlin will take on the role of Harry Potter in the series on HBO, with Arabella Stanton in the role of Hermione Granger and Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley.
Fans of the franchise had previously voiced disapproval, but now Radcliffe has stepped in to call out fans concerned about the casting in an interview with Screen Rant.
In the interview, he also touched on the impact that becoming famous at such a young age.
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"In some ways I think getting famous when you are young is almost easier because then all the weird things about fame are so intertwined with your life that they don't feel weird when you come up against them," he said.
But when it came to people getting defensive over the movies, Radcliffe made his feelings clear.
"Dominic is going to be better than me," he said.
The actor explained that he would prefer to let the new cast get on with the production.
"I would like not to be weird spectral phantoms in these children's lives and just let them get on with it," he said.
"It's going to be a new thing, a different thing and they're going to be better than me, I'm sure Dominic is going to be better than me."
He added: "I learned as I went. I look back at what I did now with a lot more kindness and I find it less embarrassing now that I'm older."
But Radcliffe also took the moment to offer some advice to the younger cast members in the new show.
"I would say, have the best time and lean on the crew," he said. "Everyone has an image of how we were all raised on the set by the best British actors, but Maggie Smith wasn't coming in and giving me advice on how to grow up. That's not their job.
"The people that we were really close to were the crew. The crew were some of my best friends, they are still the people who I am really close to."
Many of the original cast of the Harry Potter films, including Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, have distanced themselves from JK Rowling over her views on transgender people.
The Harry Potter author previously hit out at Radcliffe and Watson over the issue, taking to social media to accuse them of being 'celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors'.
Radcliffe has previously issued a statement via LGBTQ+ suicide prevention charity the Trevor Project, saying: “Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.”
