Katie Leung says Harry Potter publicists told her to deny racist attacks

Scottish actress Katie Leung, who appeared in five of the Harry Potter movies, has opened up about the racist attacks she endured when she was 16.

On the Chinese Chippy Girl podcast on Monday (March 8), the 33-year-old actress revealed that some fans were spewing racist comments over her being cast as Cho Chang, Potter's love interest, who first appeared in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (2005).

"I was, like, googling myself at one point and I was on this website, which was kind of dedicated to Harry Potter fandom," Leung said. "I remember reading all the comments. And yeah, it was a lot of racist s***."

She also discovered a "hate site" dedicated to disparaging her, which kept count of the number of commenters who disagreed with her casting.

However, when she brought this up to the film's publicists, she was instructed to deny any racism in connection to her role in the hugely popular franchise.

She was also not given any sort of training to prepare for media interviews.

She said: "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.'"

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"I was like, 'Okay, yeah, I'll just say everything's great,'" she added, although she did not say whether the instruction came from personal publicists or studio representatives. A Warner Bros Pictures representative declined to comment on the matter to Entertainment Weekly magazine.

Leung also said that she was "grateful" to have been in the movie franchise, which started in 2001 and ended 10 years later.

In a 2016 interview with Scotland's The Herald, she mentioned facing racist attacks online.

She said: "Looking back, I can't remember much about that part of it because I was so in denial of what was happening. I put it to the back of my mind. I don't know if that is the best way to deal with it, but that is naturally what I did in order to move on and be a good actor."

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction