Daniel Radcliffe Weighs in on the Johnny Depp ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Controversy
Fans were more than a little disappointed when Johnny Depp, who was accused of domestic violence against his ex Amber Heard, was cast as the title villain in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. And J.K. Rowling didn’t exactly help the situation when she defended the decision. Now, Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has spoken out about the casting controversy.
“It’s a very hard thing for me,” the actor said when asked by Entertainment Weekly about Depp’s involvement with the film. According to the outlet, he noted that he wanted to be supportive of the film’s producers, who “gave [him] a great start in life and an amazing job” — but he also said he “can see why people are frustrated with the response that they were given from that.”
He told EW: “I’m not saying anything that anybody hasn’t already said — and this is a weird analogy to draw — [but] in the NFL, there are lots of players arrested for smoking weed and there is other people’s behavior that goes way beyond that and it’s tolerated because they’re very famous players. I suppose the thing I was struck by was, we did have a guy who was reprimanded for weed on the [original Potter] film, essentially, so obviously what Johnny has been accused of is much greater than that.”
In case you don’t know what Radcliffe is talking about, actor Jamie Waylett, who played Vincent Crabbe in six of the films, was let go after he was arrested in 2009 for growing marijuana plants in his bedroom. As EW points out, some critics reference this in protesting Depp’s casting.
We’ll find out if the controversy affects the movie’s reception when Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald hits theaters on November 16.
What do you think about Daniel Radcliffe’s thoughts on the Johnny Depp casting controversy? Let us know @BritandCo!
(photo via Andreas Rentz/Getty Images for Tommy Hilfiger)
