Harry Potter Star Katie Leung Addresses Negativity From Being Cast As Cho Chang

Katie Leung recently touched on the negativity she faced upon being cast as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter franchise while appearing on the Chinese Chippy Girl podcast. She revealed that, when news of her casting leaked, people began writing online hate posts and someone even went through the trouble of creating a website dedicated to the fervor against her. "I was like, Googling myself at one point and I was on this website which was dedicated to kind of Harry Potter fandom and I remember reading all the comments. It was a lot of racist sh*t," Leung said. Per her description, the site she encountered even let people join in on it. "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... It's so awful."

It sounds like Leung didn't get a ton of support from adults at the time; she also revealed on the podcast that, when speaking to publicists about the issue, she was told to act as if she was unaware. "'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'...and I just nodded my head," Leung said. "I was like, 'OK, OK,' even though I had seen it myself with my own eyes. I was like, OK, yeah, I'll just say everything's great."

An undated post from FemaleFirst.co.uk backs up Leung's story, reporting that "One message branded Katie an 'ugly b*tch' while another infuriated film fan said 'I hate her.'" It's not the first time Leung has touched on the backlash she faced as a young actress; she spoke to the UK's Sunday Mail in 2005 about the issue. "A lot of the messages were from jealous girls who didn't like the fact I play Harry's love interest in the film and some of them did bring my ethnicity into it," Leung said. She added that she was proud of her own strength throughout the ordeal and revealed that it motivated her to work even harder to become successful.