Harry Potter Star Doubles Down on Criticism of Adult Fans

While a reboot of the Harry Potter franchises looms on the horizon at Max, original series actor Miriam Margoyles is doubling down on recent comments that the series is for children, and adult fans need to get over it. The star, who played Professor Pomona Sprout in both Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2, made comments recently suggesting that it was a little unsettling to her how firmly some audience members have held onto the series as they aged. Her comments sparked backlash, and then she went on Australia’s ABC News Breakfast to double down.

Margoyles, who previously joked that she “didn’t want to think about” the love lives of couples with Harry Potter-themed weddings, told News Breakfast that she thought the films themselves were great, and she was glad to have been part of them. Still, she said in fairly straightforward terms, she thinks there’s a pretty obvious cutoff for Wizarding World fandom.

“I’m not unhappy about it. I just think that it’s for children, and if your balls have dropped, then it’s time to forget about it. You know, go on to other things,” Margoyles told News Breakfast (via Deadline).

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has made bringing the Wizarding world back to the screen one of his top priorities, announcing not long after Discovery took over Warner Bros. that a TV series was in the works. Excitement for the series has been tempered by worries that it won’t be as good as the originals, or that J.K. Rowling’s controversial offscreen antics will distract from the actual show.

Big plans for the Fantastic Beasts franchise would have kept Harry and his friends off screen for long enough that most of the kids who grew up with the 2000s movies would have aged out of the 18-35 demographic by the time a reboot came along. Instead, they will be doing the same thing The Lord of the Rings is over at Amazon: hoping they can sell the audience by telling new stories, or variations on the ones that are already out there in live action. Generally, franchise fatigue and Rowling’s controveries haven’t hurt Potter much. Obviously, the books continue to sell well and video games and other merchandise have proven extremely successful. The difference here is that the movies themselves (and the actors who played the leads) are so beloved.

“My understanding is that they’re trying to very much start fresh and I’m sure whoever is making them will want to make their own mark on it and probably not want to have to figure out how to get old Harry to cameo in this somewhere,” Radcliffe recently confirmed with ComicBook.com. “So I’m definitely not seeking it out in any way. But I do wish them, obviously, all the luck in the world and I’m very excited to have that torch passed. But I don’t think it needs me to physically pass it.”

The new Harry Potter television show has yet to set a release date. All movies in the franchise are currently streaming on Max.