‘Titans’ Ryan Potter Upset With Fans Targeting His Co-Star

The first trailer for DC Universe‘s upcoming Titans series has only been out for a few weeks, but series star Ryan Potter is already upset with fans over the targeting of co-star Anna Diop.

Potter, who plays Garfield “Gar” Logan/Beast Boy in the upcoming live-action series, recently spoke to the Associated Press at San Diego Comic-Cn and said that, while he can understand people nitpicking at the details of things it’s “mind boggling” why some feel the need make actors of color doing their job targets of hate.

“There’s a lot of fan cultures that I’m part of and fandoms I’m part of and ultimately if you’re a fan of a project yeah, you’re gonna take it apart to its core and you’re gonna criticize it cause you, as a fan, love it and want it to be better and it could potentially be better but at the end of the day you don’t harass the actors and actresses for being a certain race or being a certain character that doesn’t make any sense to me,” Potter said. “These people are doing a job. In this certain political climate that we live in people are allowed to say whatever they feel now and that is, that’s the whole point of America, freedom of speech to a certain degree. You know, targeting, especially people of color online it’s absolutely mind boggling to me that like this is acceptable.”

While he doesn’t mention Diop by name, Potter is referring to harassment that the Starfire actress has received online. In the days since the first Titans trailer was released, Diop went so far as to disable comments on her Instagram account, a decision that some believe was due to racist and derogatory remarks made about her casting.

While the idea of actors and creators — particularly those who are non-white or female — receiving backlash and harassment on social media from so called fans has sadly become all too routine in fandom, Diop’s situation may be the most recent. In addition to her recent disabling of comments, when leaked set photos provided a first look at Diop in costume earlier this year, the actress received backlash for not being “comic accurate” — meaning that she wasn’t a white woman playing an orange-skinned alien.

However, Diop has her supporters and it’s not just Potter speaking out about the toxic opinions. Minka Kelly, who plays Dawn Granger/Dove on Titans, also spoke out in support of Diop in a post to her own Instagram last week.

“That so many racist cowards would take the time to attack her on Instagram so that she has to shut off comments after having already shut down her entire account once over this bullshit makes me feel rage,” Kelly wrote in part on Instagram. “Though I also feel a small relief knowing how strong and thick-skinned Anna is. I know she is and will be okay. It takes zero courage to sit in your dark lonely room spewing your venom online while protected by your anonymous faceless accounts.”

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Titans is expected to debut on DC Universe later this year. ComicBook.com will provide more updates as they come about.