The public’s reaction was decidedly more complicated. After Essiedu’s casting was announced, the internet erupted, with certain corners deeply upset
The public’s reaction was decidedly more complicated. After Essiedu’s casting was announced, the internet erupted, with certain corners deeply upset that a Black man was stepping into the role. In March, Essiedu told The Times of London that he’d received death threats from so-called Harry Potter fans: “Quit or I’ll murder you,” one said.
Essiedu doesn’t have a problem with good-faith criticism. “There’s some people who are just like, ‘I’ve done my research, and I know what kind of actor you are, and you suck.’ And they’re totally entitled to their opinion,” he says. “Then there are the people who are like, ‘You are bad because you are Black’—which, to me, is racist.” He stops to reconsider his words for a moment. “Well, actually not ‘You’re bad because you are Black.’ But there is a racially driven animosity.”
In the final weeks before the series premiere, though, Essiedu is most concerned with a third group, one he has real empathy for. “There are people who have got such a tight and deeply felt connection to something that they believe is theirs, and it feels like somebody is trying to take their thing and break their thing,” he says. Essiedu has a message for that cohort: “I know that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to break anybody’s nothing. After this, we’re not going to burn the books. We’re not going to remove the DVDs of the films. It’s not the end of that. That all still exists.”
And Essiedu is quick to point out that the vitriol hasn’t been universal: “I got a lot of love as well,” he says. “That really fuels me as much as the hate.”
He’s also aware that he could avoid much of the bad stuff by staying offline—if only it were that effortless. “You’ve got your DMs, and then there’s the bit where it says ‘request’ or ‘hidden,’” he says. “You know you shouldn’t go in there. You know you don’t need to scratch that itch. But you can’t stop yourself from doing it. You want to know what the face of the monster looks like.”
