Tilda Swinton vs. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Might Not Be All It's Cracked Up to Be

For all her eccentric artistic impulses, Tilda Swinton is also an Oscar winner (Best Supporting Actress for 2008’s Michael Clayton) who’s perfectly comfortable in big-budget studio franchises, be it The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or Marvel’s Doctor Strange. There is, however, one high-profile series with which she wants nothing to do — and for a highly personal reason.

Related: ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’: What Director Chris Columbus Got Right

In a new interview with Scots Magazine (via EW.com), Swinton — currently in theaters in Doctor Strange as the Ancient One, who mentors Benedict Cumberbatch’s title character in the ways of mystical magic — explains her distaste for the Harry Potter films, which over the course of eight installments have featured just about every one of her fellow England-to-Hollywood acting compatriots. It’s not the subject of wizardry that turns her off, however, but the saga’s depiction of Hogwarts, since she felt that London’s West Heath boarding school — which she attended as a youth — was “a very lonely and isolating environment.”

“That’s why I dislike films like Harry Potter, which tend to romanticize such places. I think they are a very cruel setting in which to grow up and I don’t feel children benefit from that type of education. Children need their parents and the love parents can provide.”

Related: Eddie Redmayne Makes a House Call In Fun New PSA: “I Am a Proud Hufflepuff”

In light of this objection to J.K. Rowling’s fantasy, one wonders if Swinton is fonder of the later Harry Potter chapters, which are far less focused on the Dumbledore-administered academy, or of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which is set in 1920s New York. Either way, it doesn’t seem, at least for now, that Swinton will be rushing to join Johnny Depp, Eddie Redmayne, and Co. in any of the four planned future installments of the new Rowling-penned Potter-prequel franchise.

‘Harry Potter’ Superfan Gets J.K. Rowling Inspirational Quote Tattooed On Her Arm: