As Harry Potter star Tom Felton doubles down on backing JK Rowling, how other stars have been rather less grateful to the woman who made their careers
Tom Felton bucked a persistent trend among Harry Potter 's younger stars this week when he backed its creator JK Rowling as she comes under fire for her views on gender ideology.
The actor, now 37, played Harry's nemesis Draco Malfoy in the movies from 2001 until 2011 and will reprise the role for for the Broadway show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
And more than two decades after Rowling helped give him his big break, he doubled down on his support for the franchise's author, insisting he is 'grateful' for what she has done for him.
Asked if the controversy around the writer's views on trans rights affect his work, Felton replied: 'No, I can't say it does. I'm not really that attuned.
'The only thing I always remind myself is that I've been lucky enough to travel the world.
'Here I am in New York. And I have not seen anything bring the world together more than Potter, and she's responsible for that. So I'm incredibly grateful.'
The praise reinforced his comments in 2021 'celebrating' Rowling's books and their influence on people across the world.
But his fellow stars have been less forthcoming in showing their appreciation for Rowling, with some going so far as to distance themselves from the woman who made their careers as she comes under fire for her social stances.
The likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, pictured L-R with Rowling in 2011, have distance themselves from the woman who made their careers
Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry in the blockbuster films, now no longer speaks with the author after falling out with her about gender ideology.
The actor, 34, initially feuded with the Scottish writer after he penned an article declaring 'transgender women are women' shortly after Rowling criticised the use of the phrase 'people who menstruate' rather than women.
She mocked the piece writing: 'I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?'
Shortly afterwards, Radcliffe penned an article for The Trevor Project - an LGBT+ suicide prevention charity that said 'transgender women are women'.
He added: 'Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I.'
Radcliffe also apologised to those who he said may feel as though their enjoyment of the Harry Potter series had been 'tarnished or diminished'.
Now three years later, Radcliffe has revealed the pair no longer speak which he said makes him 'really sad'.
He admitted 'nothing in my life' would have happened if it was not for the 58-year-old writer, but added that it did not mean he 'owes' what he 'truly believes' to Rowling for his 'entire life'.
Radcliffe, who played Harry in the blockbuster films, now no longer speaks with the author after falling out with her about gender ideology (pictured, as Harry in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004)
Watson starred as Hermione Granger, pictured in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part One in 2010, and said in a tweet following Rowling's initial comments: 'Trans people are who they say they are'
Watson has repeatedly spoken out in favour of trans rights both before (top) and after (bottom) Rowling's comments in June 2020
Co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who played the starring trio, have also taken a strong stance against the author instead confirming their continued support to the trans community.
Watson said in a tweet following Rowling's initial comments: 'Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren't who they say they are.'
The 33-year-old, who played school chum Hermione Granger, previously shared an image of herself in a t-shirt reading: 'Trans rights are human rights.'
At the 2022 Baftas she also appeared to make a subtle dig towards Rowling. Host Rebel Wilson had called her onto the stage, adding 'she calls her self a feminist, but we all know she's a witch'.
Watson then replied 'I'm here for all the witches' which many viewers deemed was the actress making a jibe at Rowling.
That same year, Grint, who played Ron in the films, described Rowling as his 'auntie' but added in an article in The Times: 'I don't necessarily agree with everything my auntie says, but she's still my auntie. It's a tricky one.'
Other younger members of the cast have also joined their chorus in recent years including Bonnie Wright (Ginnie Weasley), Chris Rankin (Percy Weasley) and Katie Leung (Cho Chang).
Radcliffe has long been a supporter of the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide-prevention hotline and crisis-intervention resource (pictured with the child stars in 2001)
Wright said simply in a tweet following Rowling's comments: 'Transwomen are women. I see and love you.'
Leung started a thread on Twitter in 2020 that purported to offer her thoughts on Cho Chang's character - before sharing links to a number of organisations supporting transgender people of colour.
Responding to the initial backlash from those who benefited from her book series she said it was 'nonsense' to suggest she 'hated' trans people.
'I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them,' she wrote in 2020.
'I'd march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it's hateful to say so.'
And in April, Rowling insisted she would never forgive the younger stars of the film franchise for speaking out against her views on trans rights.
Responding to a tweet that asked whether the likes of Radcliffe and Watson would apologise to the author, 'safe in the knowledge that you will forgive them', she said: 'Not safe, I'm afraid.'
'Celebs who cosied up to a movement intent on eroding women's hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces,' the writer added.
Jason Isaacs, pictured in May, who played Lucius Malfoy in the films, told the Telegraph in 2022: 'There's a bunch of stuff about Jo… I don't want to get drawn into the trans issues'
Meanwhile Ralph Fiennes, pictured in May, said in 2021 that he could not understand the 'level of hatred' directed towards the author
Felton has joined a small group of stars supporting Rowling, bucking the trend set by the likes of Radcliffe, Watson and Grint
Most of the criticism for Rowling has come from actors born into the millenial generation, with older actors proving quicker to back the series' creator.
Ralph Fiennes and the late Robbie Coltrane, who were established stars long before landing their roles in the noughties hit, defended the author's right to her own opinion - even expressing sympathy at the sheer amount of hate she had received.
Jason Isaacs, who played Lucius Malfoy in the films, told the Telegraph in 2022: 'There's a bunch of stuff about Jo… I don't want to get drawn into the trans issues, talking about them, because it's such an extraordinary minefield.
'One of the things that people should know about her too - not as a counter-argument - is that she has poured an enormous amount of her fortune into making the world a much better place... through her charity Lumos.
'And that is unequivocally good. Many of us Harry Potter actors have worked for it, and seen on the ground the work that they do.'
Meanwhile Ralph Fiennes, who played Voldemort, said in 2021 that he could not understand the 'level of hatred' directed towards the author, adding that he found it disturbing.
'(The) verbal abuse directed at (Rowling) is disgusting, it's appalling. I mean, I can understand a viewpoint that might be angry at what she says about women,' he told The New York Times.
'But it's not some obscene, uber-right-wing fascist. It's just a woman saying: "I'm a woman and I feel like I'm a woman and I want to be able to say that I'm a woman".'
Rowling has said she is unlikely to forgive Radcliffe and Watson for taking the stance that they have on trans people
The Harry Potter author recently responded on X, formerly known as Twitter, to the publication of the Cass review on gender treatment
The late Robbie Coltrane, who played the half-giant gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid in the Potter films, also defended Rowling before his death in October 2022.
He told the Radio Times in 2020 that the author's critics 'hang around waiting to be offended', adding: 'They wouldn't have won the war, would they?'
Evanna Lynch, who played Luna Lovegood in the Potter films, initially said Rowling was on 'the wrong side of this debate', but later rowed back on some of her comments in February 2023.
She praised Rowling for amplifying the voices of those who choose to detransition after believing they were trans - but added to the Telegraph that she did not want to add to trans people's 'pain'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
'There was a real gutsiness about them': How the heiresses dubbed the 'dollar princesses' brought US flair to the UK
The rich, glamorous women of the gilded age who married into the English aristocracy faced some challenges – but they were resilient, formidable characters. As TV's The Buccaneers season two begins, and an exhibition in London is devoted to them, we explore the lives of the women who inspired writers and artists. Can the new Duchess of Tintagel steer clear of scandal? Will her fugitive sister, Jinny, keep her baby from the clutches of her husband, the monstrous Lord Seadown? Can Mabel and Honoria's forbidden love flourish? The Buccaneers, Apple TV+'s hit period drama, is back for a second season, and its legions of fans expect answers to all of the above. The show charts the romantic adventures of a group of young American women – two pairs of sisters and their friend – who, looked down upon as nouveau riche by older, grander New York families, come to England in the 1870s and cut a swathe through high society. Fast-moving, fun and visually sumptuous, it looks as though the costume budget alone could dwarf the entire expenditure of lesser shows. It is lavish, colourful escapism – yet the unfinished Edith Wharton novel of 1938 upon which it is based was inspired by a real phenomenon. Between 1870 and 1914, 102 American women – 50 of them from New York – married British peers or the younger sons of peers, and many more married into the upper classes. They were dubbed "dollar princesses" and the popular view was that these were purely transactional marriages – cash for class. The women gained a title and status; the often cash-strapped aristocrats got a welcome injection of money to help them fix the leaking roof of the crumbling family seat. "The decline in landed income during the Great Agricultural Depression, beginning in the 1870s, necessitated numerous male aristocrats to seek marital alliances outside the inner social network of the British aristocracy," explains Maureen Montgomery, a historian and Wharton scholar who is currently editing The Buccaneers for the Oxford University Press's The Complete Works of Edith Wharton. "Another factor was the openness of the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, to wealthy businessmen being part of his inner social circle and his penchant for the beautiful and entertaining daughters of the American bourgeois elite who were travelling in ever larger numbers, after the Civil War, to Europe." The first inklings of a novel to be called The Buccaneers appear in Wharton's notebook for 1924-1928. There she set out the plot, revolving around the "conquest of England by American adventurers & adventuresses/families". "In the summer of 1928, during one of her many annual trips to England in her later years, she visited Tintagel in Cornwall and stayed with her close friend Lady Wemyss at her Cotswold estate, Stanway," Montgomery tells the BBC. "Both of these places became significant settings for the novel." However, Montgomery doesn't believe that there is any one particular story or person that the writer drew upon. "Wharton had close friends among the British aristocracy, and went to weekend country house parties. She personally knew a number of titled Americans. She would have been familiar with various scenarios for these marriages, how they were received, the different motives for marrying," she says. Some historians have suggested Consuelo Vanderbilt as one of the possible models for The Buccaneers' Conchita Closson. Considered a great beauty, Consuelo was a "dollar princess" whose father made a fortune in railroads. Her dowry was worth tens of millions in today's money. She was more or less bullied by her mother into marrying Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, and was said to have wept behind her veil at the altar on her wedding day in 1895 (one of nine US heiresses to marry English aristocrats that year). More like this:• The true story of the first ever 'rock star' chef• Age of Innocence: How a US classic defined its era• How history's brutal witch trials resonate now The marriage was deeply unhappy. "Sunny", as the Duke was known, wasted little time in telling her he'd only married her for her money and in order to save Blenheim Palace, the ducal seat. In her memoir, The Glitter and the Gold, Conseulo wrote of a Blenheim Palace butler who had drowned himself: "As one gloomy day succeeded another I began to feel a deep sympathy for him." Her marriage produced two children but both Consuelo and her husband had lovers. Consuelo had been preceded into the aristocracy by the godmother after whom she was named. The Cuban-American heiress Consuelo Yznaga Montagu, another model for Conchita, married George Montagu, Viscount Mandeville, in 1876 and became the Duchess of Manchester when he inherited the title. The profligate duke burned through his wife's money and had numerous affairs. Consuelo, who is mentioned in Wharton's notebook, was reportedly very close to the Prince of Wales. 'Swashbuckling beauties' Both Consuelos feature in Heiress: Sargent's American Portraits, an exhibition of 18 works by John Singer Sargent at Kenwood House on London's Hampstead Heath. The show has been curated by Wendy Monkhouse, English Heritage Senior Curator (South), and is the result of two years' work. "There was a real gutsiness about these heiresses," Monkhouse tells the BBC. "They were brave. They had a hard time entering British society as foreigners, and foreigners of whom everybody was envious and resentful and wanted to take down a peg or two because of this 'buccaneer' trope." They were, supposedly, swashbuckling beauties who leapt aboard the good ship Britannia and, with piratical ruthlessness, bagged themselves a baron or an earl or maybe even a duke. The English newspaper editor WT Stead used the expression "gilded prostitution" when writing about these transatlantic marriages. There was opposition from the US too, at the highest level. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his ambassador to the UK Whitelaw Reid in 1906, "I thoroly [sic]… dislike these international marriages… which are based upon the sale of the girl for her money and the purchase of the man for his title." And plenty of ordinary Americans hated the idea of all that wealth leaving the country and being squandered on wastrel British aristocrats. This wasn't what they'd fought a war of independence for. But Monkhouse argues that the moniker "dollar princesses" does the women a disservice. "I think it's a term that has been tossed around for a hundred years without very much thought, apart from in academic circles," she says. "The more that you delve into it, the more it falls apart. I think Consuelo Vanderbilt, though she doesn't call herself a dollar princess, sort of defined the genre in that she was a very rich American who was, not by her own choice, married for a title and then was unhappy." However, other women whose images are featured in the exhibition had very different stories. Daisy Leiter, glamorous and independent-minded daughter of a Chicago real estate magnate, was considered quite the catch and not just for her money, as Sargent's magnificent portrait shows. She was bombarded with proposals but married Henry Howard, the 19th Earl of Suffolk. It seems to have been a very happy love match and produced three sons. In later life, Daisy further exemplified the adventurous spirit of many of these women by becoming a helicopter pilot. Another of Sargent's subjects was Cora, Countess of Strafford. Her name is echoed by that of a famous fictional "dollar princess", Cora, Countess of Grantham, in Downton Abbey. Julian Fellowes has said that one of the inspirations for the series was a book about American heiresses called To Marry an English Lord. The real Cora was a Southern belle who married the 4th Earl of Strafford after the death of her first husband, toothpaste baron Samuel Colgate. The Earl died just five months after the wedding when he fell on to railway tracks at Potter's Bar. The incident prompted much gossip, as did the fact that Cora wore her coronet sideways at Edward VII's coronation. One of the best known of the women in the Heiress exhibition, represented in both an oil portrait and a charcoal drawing, is Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, the daughter of a Virginian railway tycoon and the first woman to take her seat as an MP in the House of Commons. She had regular clashes with Winston Churchill, whose own mother, Jennie Jerome, was the daughter of a wealthy New York speculator and financier. There's a splash of politics in the new season of The Buccaneers that sees Nan realising that her elevated social status gives her power and influence, and beginning to wield it. Buccaneers showrunner Katherine Jakeways read extensively on the "dollar princesses" before writing began on the series, and she draws on their stories, as well as the Wharton text. "You imagine that the girls who came over were interesting to the men because (a) they were beautiful, (b) they were American and (c) they were rich, but actually what's really interesting is that (d) they were much better educated and much more encouraged to be confidently involved in society [than their English counterparts]," she tells the BBC. "In New York their opinions were sought whereas girls in England, as we show with Honoria in Season one, were asked not to speak or have an opinion." Like their real-life counterparts, the women in the show don't conform to reductive stereotypes. "Our characters are complicated and have depth, and we try to make all the relationships have some kind of resonance for a contemporary audience," says Jakeways. "And hopefully it's just really good fun." Season two is another rollercoaster ride that remixes all the successful ingredients from the first series. Will there be a season three? I'd bet an heiress's dowry on it. The Buccaneers Season Two premieres on Apple TV+ on 18 June. Heiress: Sargent's American Portraits is at Kenwood House, London, until 5 October. -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Everything that happened at Summer Game Fest 2025, from marathon game sessions to military helicopters
As protests exploded in Los Angeles last weekend, elsewhere in the city, a coterie of games journalists and developers were gathered together to play new games at the industry's annual summer showcase. This week's issue is a dispatch from our correspondent Alyssa Mercante. Summer Game Fest (SGF), the annual Los Angeles-based gaming festival/marketing marathon, was set up to compete with the once-massive E3. It's taken a few years, but now it has replaced it. 2025's event felt like a cogent reminder that the games industry has dramatically changed since the pandemic. Whereas E3 used to commandeer the city's convention centre smack in the middle of downtown LA, SGF is off the beaten path, nestled among the reams of fabric in the Fashion District, adjacent to Skid Row. There are fewer game companies present, it's not open to the public and there's no cosplay, unless it's for marketing purposes. Its centrepiece is a live show held at the YouTube theatre near the airport, hosted by ever-present games industry hype-man Geoff Keighley and streamed to millions – and you can buy tickets for that. Some video game enthusiasts and smaller content creators told me that the in-person showcase wasn't worth their money: just a very lengthy show that they could have watched online, culminating in a massive traffic jam to get out of Inglewood. This year's event had some hiccups, including an attempted gatecrasher, but felt the most put-together yet. Attending SGF is a privilege, but it is also an ungodly hybrid of a marathon and a sprint: back-to-back-to-back appointments with publishers and developers with no downtime in-between, speed walking between cabanas and moving swiftly in and out of over air-conditioned rooms to ensure you don't upset a PR person or accidentally spurn an indie developer. During brief breaks, if you even get one, you'll shovel a canape into your gullet, wash it down with a Red Bull, have a quick bite of some (surprisingly good) PC Gamer-branded ice-cream, and attempt to get a few of your thoughts down on paper. I saw a lot of games this weekend, some of which I can't talk about, but once again it was the indie games that were the most memorable. Not just because they're unexpected or unique or silly, but because there are usually far fewer restrictions while you play, devs are more open to questions and there aren't eight PR people standing over your shoulder to ensure you don't open up an unfinished menu or wander some place you shouldn't. On night one, I stuck my head in at the Media Indie Exchange (MIX) party downtown, and was immediately enraptured with Urban Jungle, a plant based game that speaks to my newfound love of horticulture. Placing plants around a cutesy little room afforded me a brief moment of zen in a crowded space full of people trying out dozens of indie games. Then there's Petal Runner, a pixel art RPG that looks and feels like a Game Boy-era Pokémon title. Published by iam8bit and developed by two people who met in the Instagram comments under some cyberpunk artwork, it's a beautiful, adorable, 'no violence' RPG. Rather than engage in the questionable practice of capturing cute creatures and forcing them to fight each other, you simply help deliver them to their new owners and 'calibrate' or calm them down through a series of old-school minigames. Then you hop on your motorcycle (Petal Runner's programmer was inspired to get a bike after watching Tron: Legacy) to deliver another pet. After just 15 minutes, its modern chip-tune soundtrack, cool-toned palette, and cute creatures had me sold. Thick As Thieves, meanwhile, is a multiplayer stealth game. A representative for the developer told me that the team wanted to make a multiplayer game that avoided the three 'black holes', or oversaturated genres: shooters, PvP combat, and pure action gameplay. The result is something that feels like Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood mixed with Dishonored: you'll sneak through maps set in a dark early 1900s world cut through with slices of rich colour, while you try to pull off difficult heists to impress a thieves' guild. But other players are trying to do the exact same thing, and guards and civilians will get in your way. I also got a chance to try out the new season of Monster Hunter Now from Niantic, the studio behind Pokémon Go. This augmented reality game drops you into a version of the real world filled with monsters from Capcom's iconic action game, condensing the series' epic fights into bite-size battles that are barely a minute long (they can be close to an hour in the mainline games). And I played the new, four-person party game Lego Party with two other journalists, screaming as our Lego characters fell over each other during minigames or stole gold bricks in an attempt to get to first place. It was fun and freeing; people gathered around us as we yelled and guffawed and talked smack with gusto, as if we needed this game to help cleanse our tired palates. Every game I spent even a few minutes with this weekend was imbued with passion and creativity, no matter the size of the team or the scope of the project. It was a testament to the drive that fuels so many in this space, and the technological advancements that let smaller teams (sometimes just one or two people) make beautifully complex games. Seeing tons of fellow journalists and developers bright-eyed and excited, even with so many of us struggling to find work, recently laid off, or otherwise worried about the future, was a shot of adrenaline. But it was also impossible to ignore that something larger was taking place in LA, acting as a sombre backdrop to this comparatively low-stakes weekend of video games. On Saturday, protests broke out in Los Angeles, with citizens pushing back against the militant and cruel anti-immigration raids taking place across the city. The constant whir of helicopters was a bizarre soundtrack to the weekend; many people who had come from out of state or even out of the country were noticeably concerned about the escalating events. We furtively shared updates with each other at hands-on appointments, whispering about the national guard, warning each other to travel together and safely. On Sunday night, dozens of journalists and devs were told they couldn't leave a downtown LA bar where they had gathered; the LAPD had shut down the area, determined to quell the protests. On the last day of SGF, we chatted about how weird it was to preview video games during such an acute political moment. One person told me they were playing a demo that kicked off with tanks and military men and, as he played, he heard the sounds of a helicopter circling overhead, and wondered where the game ended and the real world began. Alyssa Mercante From the makers of Frostpunk and This War of Mine, The Alters is a strange sci-fi strategy experiment that sees stranded space-worker Jan cloning himself several times over in order to assemble a team big enough to make it off an exoplanet before the sun rises and burns everything to cinders. The thing is that the clones don't exactly get on. Each one represents a different alternate-universe version of Jan: imagine being stuck on a remote base with nothing but your squabbling selves. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion I thought The Alters was going to be a comedy game, but though it is sometimes fleetingly funny, it's also a surprisingly involving base-building survival affair, more tense and urgent-feeling than I was expecting and full of consequential choices that encourage a second or third run-through. I will certainly be playing more of it. Available on: PC, PlayStation 5, XboxApproximate playtime: 20-30 hours While Alyssa was on the ground at Summer Game Fest, Keith and I were watching an endless stream of showcases and trailers from the UK– we've picked out the most interesting games from the show. The biggest announcement was probably a new Xbox handheld – though, confusingly, it's not quite what it seems. The ROG Xbox Ally X (why can nobody at Microsoft name something properly?) is an Xbox branded version of an existing line of portable PCs. Still, Alyssa was impressed with how well it worked in her brief demo. We've also been extremely busy playing an inordinate amount of Nintendo's Switch 2. Keith's review of the console is here, and here's my review of its flagship game, Mario Kart World. Harassment by Ubisoft executives left female staff terrified, French court hears How Nintendo dodged Trump's tariffs and saved the Switch 2 release The Nintendo Switch 2 is out – here's everything you need to know No question for this week's guest issue but, as ever, if you've got something you'd like to ask, or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@
Daily Mail
31 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Dakota Johnson opens up about filming sex scenes amid shock split from longterm beau Chris Martin
Dakota Johnson has given the inside scoop on filming sex scenes, revealing she is 'always psyched' to shoot the steamy moments. In an interview with Amy Poehler on her posdcast Poehler's Good Hang, Dakota was asked how she hypes herself up for sex scenes, to which she said: 'I don't have to. I'm, like, always psyched up for sex.' The 35-year-old actress also talked about working with an intimacy coordinator for the first time, who suggested using a Pilates ball during intimate moments, but she didn't even end up using it. She also described how lessons she learned from her mother Melanie Griffith about being comfortable in her own skin have helped her own career on camera. Dakota explained: 'I recently did a movie a few months ago, and we had an intimacy coordinator on set and it was the first time I've ever worked with one, and she was really great. It was so cool, because I'm so used to just you know, like... It's a sex scene. It's not sexy, it doesn't feel good. 'A sex scene is when two actors pretend that they're having sex. And you do all the things except have sex. And you have to make sounds like you're having sex, and you're In preparation for the scene, Dakota said part of it depended on the type of character she was playing: 'First I think it depends on who is the character, and who is the character supposed to be to the audience. 'Is she like a super idolized hot girl, is she like a housewife, is she lonely, is she scared, is she conservative, you know? So that's obviously character work, so certain prep I guess would go into it.' She added: 'I want to feel good in my body,' she said. 'If I'm showing my body... my mom raised to me to be really, really proud of my body and love my body, so I've always felt so grateful for that, especially in my work, because I can use it and it feels like, real.' Dakota said her mother was 'honest and open about body stuff', which included menstruation. 'I have friends whose mothers never spoke to them about that stuff and it's so hard and sad,' she revealed. Melanie also emphasized how 'precious and important' the act of sex is to Dakota. 'She also talked to me about sex and like how precious and important,' Dakota explained. 'So I guess in my work... it's something that I feel brave with and that I feel when it's used the right way in a story, it's important. As for the intimacy coordinator, Dakota was surprised by the Pilates ball suggestion. 'So I've always just like done the simulated sex scene but now with the intimacy coordinator, was like, "Do you want a Pilates ball between you guys for the thrusting movement?"... And I was like, "What?" But then we're going to be like so far away from each other, and we didn't end up using that,' she said later in the conversation. Dakota said she filmed numerous sex scenes on her own as her on-screen partner was not on camera: 'A lot of it also is like, there are times when I've done a sex scene where I'm by myself 'cause I'm only in the frame, so I'm just like, gyrating on my own and moaning... or like slamming myself into a headboard.' Her promo tour for her new movie comes amid her split from Coldplay singer Chris Martin after almost eight years together. The couple first sparked up a relationship in 2017 and got engaged several years ago - but have now gone their separate ways. A source told 'Their relationship has been over for a long time, they just haven't been able to figure out to make it official. Dakota held a flame for them to be together because she loved him so much and loved his kids so much. The source added: 'Breakups aren't instant and they continued to breakup and makeup and sometimes things would work when they were away from each other, while they were working because absence makes the heart grow fonder, but then they'd get back together and little things just kept adding up to where they weren't right for each other anymore. 'Dakota is devastated that she isn't going to be around his kids as much anymore, but wants them to know that she is always there for them.' The insider said added there was a chance the pair may reconcile but 'right now, being separated will do wonders if they were to have any type of future together'.
