Actress Helena Bonham Carter defended actor Johnny Depp and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling in a recent interview with The Times, in which she disclosed that she “hate[s] cancel culture.”
“You can’t ban people,” Bonham Carter told The Times. “I hate cancel culture. It has become quite hysterical and there’s a kind of witch-hunt and a lack of understanding.”
Bonham Carter, a Harry Potter film franchise star, has starred in seven films with Depp, who is also the godfather of her children Billy Ray and Nell, whom she had with filmmaker Tim Burton.
(L-R) Neil Murray, J.K. Rowling, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter attend the after party following the European film premiere of ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’, at the Old Billingsgate Market on July 3, 2007 in London, England. (Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)
After being asked about Johnny Depp — who sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation earlier this year and faced the wrath of the #MeToo mob — Bonham Carter said, “Oh, I think he’s completely vindicated.”
On June 1, a jury found that a statement accusing Depp of sexual violence and domestic abuse was defamatory, and awarded the Pirates of the Caribbean star $10 million in compensatory damages.
When asked if the defamation trial was the “pendulum of #MeToo swinging back,” the actress said, “My view is that [Heard] got on that pendulum.”
“That’s the problem with these things — that people will jump on the bandwagon because it’s the trend and to be the poster girl for it,” Bonham Carter said.
During her interview, Bonham Carter also addressed Rowling, who has been under attack by radical left-wing and transgender activists ever since suggesting that only women can menstruate.
“It’s horrendous, a load of bollocks. I think she has been hounded,” the actress said. “It’s been taken to the extreme, the judgmentalism of people.”
If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020
“You don’t all have to agree on everything — that would be insane and boring,” Bonham Carter added. “She’s not meaning it aggressively, she’s just saying something out of her own experience.”
Bonham Carter went on to say that “no one can talk about ideas” on Twitter, adding, “it becomes polarized and is war, and people waste days being angry inside their head.”
“If she hadn’t been the most phenomenal success, the reaction wouldn’t be so great,” the actress added of Rowling. “So I think there’s a lot of envy unfortunately and the need to tear people down that motors a lot of this cancelling. And schadenfreude.”
Last month, Hollywood star Ralph Fiennes also defended Rowling against attacks from transgender activists, saying the verbal abuse she has experienced is both “disgusting” and “appalling.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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