'Harry Potter' Actor Jason Isaacs Calls Fans "Racists" For Criticizing Severus Snape Race Swap In Upcoming HBO Show

Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, called fans “racists” for criticizing HBO’s decision to race swap Severus Snape in its upcoming Harry Potter TV adaptation.

Collider reports that during an appearance at FanExpo Denver Isaacs stated, “Paapa Essiedu is one of the best actors I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve seen some people online who are being rude about him. What they’re being is racist.”

Isaacs also added, “All the cast of the new Harry Potter TV series are amazing. They will be swallowing their tongues, hopefully — you know, their digital tongues — when they see what [Paapa] does on screen.”

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It is not racist to criticize a major Hollywood studio for casting an actor that looks nothing like the character from the books that the show is adapting. And that is exactly what HBO did. They knew what Severus Snape looked like based on the various descriptions J.K. Rowling wrote about him in the Harry Potter books and they even had an illustration that Rowling herself drew of Snape, where it is clear that he is not black.

Rowling even wrote, “Snape as I always saw him. This was scribbled back in 1992 or 3. Although I have spent years denying that Snape is a vampire (one of the more outlandish and persistent fan theories), I must say he does look a little like Count Dracula-ish in that cloak.”

What do you make of Isaacs’ comments?

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