‘Harry Potter’ star Katie Leung faced racism but was told not to talk about it

Katie Leung says she experienced racist bullying even before she started filming 'Harry Potter'. Photo: Handout

Harry Potter star Katie Leung has opened up on the racist attacks she had to deal with over her casting as Cho Chang in the film franchise.

The 33-year-old Scottish-born actress, who played a love interest of Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry Potter, began experiencing racist bullying even before she started filming, Leung said in a Chinese Chippy Girl podcast episode on March 8.

Shortly after being cast as Cho Chang, Leung said some journalists and paparazzi started hounding her and some even managed to secretly take her photo, which got printed without her permission.

“It had got to the papers and then someone secretly took a photo of me. I just broke down. I just started crying, ” recalled Leung, who was still a teenager in high school at the time. Shortly after it got publicised, Leung said the “hate stuff” followed.

Leung, who is of Chinese descent, said she received a lot of hateful messages back then and that even comments on a Harry Potter fandom website were “a lot of racist sh*t”.

“And then somebody had actually created a website, a hate site – it was like, if you disagree with this casting, then click on this button and then it would just be like a count of how many people disagreed with the casting and you would just see a number, ” Leung stressed, noting that “it’s so awful”.

Aside from being the target of such racist attacks, Leung disclosed that she was even told by publicists to not address it and keep it under wraps.

“I remember them saying to me, ‘Oh, look, Katie, we haven’t seen these, these websites that people are talking about. And you know, if you get asked that, just say it’s not true, say it’s not happening', ” Leung recalled.

“And I just nodded my head. I was like, ‘OK, OK, ’ even though I had seen it myself with my own eyes. I was like, ‘OK, yeah, I’ll just say everything’s great', ” she added.

Leung did not disclose who or where the publicist came from, although Warner Bros Pictures has declined to comment on the matter, as per foreign magazines People and Entertainment Weekly on March 10.

Despite the situation, however, Leung shared that she also got a lot of love from fans and that she is very grateful for her role in the Harry Potter film series.

Leung has also appeared in several films and shows over the years, including The Foreigner with Jackie Chan and, most recently, Locked Down with Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Rupert Grint, who starred in Harry Potter as Ron Weasley, also recently opened up about his time in the film franchise, which he described as both “great experience” and “suffocating". – Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network