More than 20 years after enrolling in Hogwarts, Katie Leung is unpacking the mental toll of racist bullying from Harry Potter fans.
The actress explained that she “didn’t” cope with the impact that the negative attention had on her at the time, but she’s “envious of the younger generation” of actors who don’t have to deal with the same unchecked racism.
“I think it just sat with me, and it affected me in ways like, ‘Oh yeah, I made that decision because people were saying this about me,’” Leung told The Guardian. “It probably made me less outgoing. I was very self-aware of what was coming out of my mouth.”
Noting that “for the longest time,” she tried to “overcompensate” for the success of the Harry Potter films, Leung said, “I think I was so afraid of meeting these expectations that I gave up, or didn’t give myself the chance, after it, to try and continue acting.”
While she enjoyed later playing roles in projects set in China and North Korea, she found the racially specific casting to be limiting at times.
Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Katie Leung in ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ (2007) (Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection)
“It’s one of these things where just because there weren’t many roles out there, I was incredibly grateful to be considered,” she explained. “A large part of that was me, again, giving myself a hard time, thinking I wasn’t deserving of anything.”
Recounting when drama school peers would compare her to Lucy Liu, Leung said that although she’s “a huge fan” of the Rosemead actress, “That irked me. I remember thinking, why not Meryl Streep? I was kind of restricted by my race, and I guess Lucy Liu was the only other Asian actor that was, at the time, on the big screen.”
Leung envies her Hollywood successors “who are getting to see people that represent them on screens now,” adding: “I know it would have done me good.”
Debuting Part 1 on Jan. 29 and Part 2 on Feb. 26, Leung can next be seen playing Lady Araminta Gun on Season 4 of Bridgerton.