Pedro Pascal Looks Back on Calling J.K. Rowling a “Heinous Loser” for Anti-Trans Comments: “Bullies Make Me F***ing Sick”

Pedro Pascal is looking back at calling author J.K. Rowling a “heinous loser” for her anti-trans views.  

In April, the actor responded to a social media post by activist Tariq Ra’ouf, who criticized Rowling for celebrating the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom’s landmark ruling that trans women should not be recognized as women and that “sex” should legally mean biological sex.

Rowling had posted, “I love it when a plan comes together,” and added to the critic, “I get the same royalties whether you read [my books] or burn them. Enjoy your marshmallows!”

In the comment section of Ra’ouf’s post, Pascal wrote, “Awful disgusting SHIT is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behavior.”

For his Vanity Fair cover story published Tuesday, Pascal said his comment growing into a larger story made him feel like “that kid that got sent to the principal’s office a lot for behavioral issues in public schools in Texas feeling scared and thinking, ‘What’d I do?’”

“The one thing that I would say I agonized over a little bit was just, ‘Am I helping? Am I fucking helping?’” he added. “It’s a situation that deserves the utmost elegance so that something can actually happen, and people will actually be protected. Listen, I want to protect the people I love. But it goes beyond that. Bullies make me fucking sick.”

Pascal’s sister, Lux Pascal, came out as a trans woman in 2021. Pascal’s sister Javiera defended her brother’s comment about Rowling, telling Vanity Fair, “But it is heinous loser behavior. And he said that as the older brother to someone saying that our little sister doesn’t exist.”

At the time, Rowling defenders tried to argue that Pascal was “presumptuous with women” by referring to a viral clip of Pascal taking Vanessa Kirby’s hand at last year’s Fantastic Four panel at Comic-Con.

“What happened is we were both incredibly nervous going out in front of thousands of people who love this comic,” Kirby told Vanity Fair. “He wanted me to know that we were in this together, and I found it a lovely gesture and was very glad to squeeze his hand back.”

Speaking further of bullies and Fantastic Four, Pascal says he’s “getting an inkling of excitement” for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which he stars in as Mister Fantastic. However he notes, “I’m more aware of disgruntlement around my casting than anything I’ve ever done. ‘He’s too old. He’s not right. He needs to shave.’”

He credited Robert Downey Jr. for being a support system: “He’s just so immediately generous and inviting that you feel like you can be afraid, you can be hungry, you can be ambivalent.”

Meanwhile, Downey noted of Pascal to the publication that “Pascal’s slow trajectory to becoming a household name who is on a wildly hot streak kind of reaffirms my faith in our industry.”