Although he's no longer in the franchise anymore - not unless they decided to turn Harry Potter And The Cursed Child into a film - Daniel Radcliffe's spoken up on the controversy surrounding Johnny Depp's casting in the spinoff series Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.

In an interview with EW, Radcliffe explained that he "can see why people are frustrated with the response that they were given from that," and admitted that it was "a very hard thing" for him, but added that he wanted to be supportive of the producers behind the film.

Depp's casting in the sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald has become a divisive issue for fans of the series, as Depp has faced accusations of domestic violence against his ex-wife Amber Heard, which were later denied in a joint statement at the end of their divorce.

Radcliffe made a comparison between NFL players being suspended for smoking weed whilst others were accused of far worse and tolerated, and actor Jamie Waylett - who played Slytherin member Vincent Crabbe - being dropped from the two final Harry Potter films for possession of marijuana plants.

"I suppose the thing I was struck by was, we did have a guy who was reprimanded for weed on the [original Potter] film, essentially, so obviously what Johnny has been accused of is much greater than that.”

 

JK Rowling publicly defended Depp in a statement late last year, saying that "the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.”

 

Via EW