Dawn French has made an appeal to young people after being frustrated by a conversation about JK Rowling.
The comedy star, best known for French and Saunders and for playing Geraldine in The Vicar of DibleyShe said in a new podcast that she was recently disparaged for questioning why one of the Harry Potter author’s comments about the trans community was deemed unacceptable.
The comedy star’s discussion of the issue comes days after Rowling said Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson “can keep their apologies to themselves” for speaking out against her.
French, who “knows Jo a little” and appeared in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), told Fearne Cotton Happy place podcast that Rowling has “paid a huge price” for sharing her views, but said she was recently reprimanded by a podcast host when she asked to be “educated” as to why people were so outraged by one of the writer’s many controversial comments.
According to French, the anonymous host told her: “You need to get up to speed. People can’t be constantly teaching you how to be because that’s not right and you need to get up to speed.”
However, this irritated the actor, who argued: “It’s very powerful to say ‘I don’t know’, especially when you don’t know. That’s better than pretending you know. It’s certainly better than forming an opinion about something you don’t know.”
Addressing younger people with whom she might have similar conversations in the future, French continued: “And I just say, please, especially you younger people, please educate me and explain this to me so I can understand it and not make this mistake again. But don’t tell me to catch up.”
French said Rowling was “a good person” who had “made her mistakes” and supported the idea of “robust debate that can change your mind”, calling it “the best thing in the world”.
But he added that this would be “impossible if all we have to do is dig in our heels, defend them by spitting and being angry and then blaming and cancelling.”
Criticising the idea of “cancel culture”, French said: “I honestly think we’re being forced into corners where I can smell my own cowardice.
“I don’t like that. I hope I’ve never been a coward, but I’m starting to be one because I’m cautious about what I will or won’t support in case it causes problems.”
She said that, “especially as women,” the “last thing we should do is keep quiet.”
Rowling, who faced backlash from several key cast members when she shared controversial comments about the trans community in 2020, has seen her relationship with stars deteriorate amid an increasingly toxic debate.
