Keira Knightley said that she was “not aware” of demands to boycott JK Rowling prior to joining the cast of the new audiobook versions of the Harry Potter series.
Knightley was speaking to Decider to promote her new Netflix movie The Woman in Cabin 10 (in which she plays a Guardian reporter), and was asked if she knew that “some fans are calling for a Harry Potter boycott”.
Knightley said: “I was not aware of that, no. I’m very sorry. You know, I think we’re all living in a period of time right now where we’re all going to have to figure out how to live together, aren’t we? And we’ve all got very different opinions.”
She added: “I hope that we can all find respect.”
Knightley has been cast as Professor Dolores Umbridge in the Full-Cast Audio Editions of Harry Potter, alongside hundreds of other performers including Cush Jumbo (as the narrator), Hugh Laurie (as Albus Dumbledore) and Riz Ahmed (as Severus Snape).
Calls to boycott Rowling’s work have multiplied since her reaction to the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the legal definition of a woman, in which she posted a photograph of herself smoking a cigar on social media. Rowling subsequently said she didn’t want to have the actor Paapa Essiedu removed from the forthcoming Harry Potter TV show after he signed an open letter protesting against the ruling.
Rowling also recently responded to Emma Watson in the ongoing rift with Watson and her co-stars of the Harry Potter film series over trans rights, saying the actor is “ignorant of how ignorant she is”.
