Sophie Hyde's queer family drama, Jimpa, is one of the most empathetic films about trans youth. So when its star, John Lithgow, announced that he'd be playing Dumbledore in HBO's upcoming Harry Potter adaptation, many viewers were left scratching their heads.
For the film's star and director, the announcement hit even harder.
"It was definitely a difficult moment in time," Aud Mason-Hyde, the director's real-life trans child who stars in the film as trans teen Frances, says. "I don't think it's worth speaking to John's reasoning by any means, but I do also think that it's a strange decision, for sure. And also I found it disconcerting, maybe, is the right word."
In the film, Lithgow plays Jim, a gay elder who fought for gay and HIV rights his whole life and is now working at a university in Amsterdam. When his daughter (Olivia Colman), her husband, and Jim's nonbinary grandchild, Frances, visit, they explore the differences and similarities of the disparate queer generations, all while dealing with long-term family drama. While Jim and Frances clash over generational differences, Frances still considers Jim to be their hero.
"It's a very difficult thing," director and co-writer Sophie Hyde says. "As soon as I heard about Harry Potter, for sure, I contacted John and expressed my feelings about it. Not that J.K. Rowling has opinions, which is one thing, but that she has a very vocal platform and she's funding a very, very harmful legal battle against trans people and that funding is doing a great deal of harm."
"John is somebody who responds from his own point of view and is very kind of keen to talk about empathy, really wants to support the film Jimpa, really believes in trans rights, really believes in the story and all of these things, and yet has made the decision for his own reasons to do the show," she says.
Mason-Hyde says that while filming the movie, Lithgow became "in some capacity a mentor" to them.
"He is such an incredibly talented actor, but also such a beautiful human to make work with, and that was my experience with John. I never felt invalidated or questioned or doubted in my identity or in my transness by him," Mason-Hyde says. "I consistently felt that he was a very loving and a very guiding co-star."
"And so there's an element of this that feels vaguely hurtful," they add. "But also I think that he's making this decision after we had made the film and after we had premiered the film, can't take away from what we had and the time that we spent together and the beautiful work that he does in this movie and actually how incredibly authentically he played the role."
"It definitely hurt you, Aud, didn't it? This choice," Hyde says to her child. "And I think that's OK because one of the things we try and deal with in the film is like, how do we hurt each other and still have this conversation? And it definitely hurt, but also John turned up to a big talk in Rotterdam two days ago with us, knowing that this would be the questioning that he gets. He could easily choose to just not do that for this film, but he doesn't. He's like, 'Okay. I'm here. Yeah. I made the choice. I wear it. Okay. How do we do this now?'"
While representing Jimpa at the Rotterdam Film Festival on Sunday, February 1, Lithgow said he takes the Rowling controversy "very seriously."
"She has created this amazing canon for young people, and it has jumped into the consciousness of the society. It's about good versus evil, kindness versus cruelty," Lithgow said. "I find her views ironic and inexplicable. I've never met her; she's not really involved in this production at all. But the people who are, are remarkable."
Jimpa premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and opens in limited theaters on Friday, February 6.
