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Actress Katie Leung shared how she faced racism after being cast for the character Cho Chang in the Harry Potter movies.
Speaking on Chinese Chippy Girl, the 33-year-old recalled the bullying she faced when news of her role leaked even before the shooting began.
“It had got to the papers and then someone secretly took a photo of me,” she said.
“I just broke down. I just started crying.”
After the photo was released to the public, Katie, who at the time was still a teenager in school, said that she began receiving very negative and hateful messages.
“I was like, Googling myself at one point and I was on this website, which was kind of dedicated to the Harry Potter fandom, and I remember reading all the comments. It was a lot of racist [expletive],” she said.
“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,” she said.
“I know, it’s awful. It’s so awful.”
The then-teen did not know how to handle the negative attention and turned to a publicist who suggested not to talk about it to the press.
“I remember them saying to me, ‘Oh look, Katie, we haven’t seen these websites that people are talking about. And if you get asked, then just say it’s not true. Say it’s not happening,’ ” she recalled.
“And I just nodded my head. I was like, ‘Okay, Okay,’ even though I had seen it myself with my own eyes,” she said.
“I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll just say everything’s great.'”