‘Harry Potter’ Star Declined MCU Role Because She 'Hates America'

The actress who portrayed Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter film franchise, Miriam Margolyes, turned down a role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a very specific reason: she "doesn't like America."

According to The Wrap, Margolyes was approached about a film that was "a story about witches." The outlet concluded that the unnamed project was most likely the WandaVision spinoff Agatha, which is set to premiere on Disney+ in late 2024 and stars Kathryn Hahn, Aubrey Plaza, Heartstopper's Joe Locke, and more.

"I don’t like America and I didn’t want to be in Georgia for four months. So I just said, 'Well, I want a million pounds,' and they said, 'You can have half a million,' and I said, 'No, I don’t want to do it,' so it just stopped," Margolyes explained.

"Really it’s a story about my own greed rather than anything else," she added.

Margolyes has become known for her unfiltered candor.

Elsewhere in the same interview, she dragged her Little Shop of Horrors co-star Steve Martin, calling him "rather horrid" and "incredibly unfriendly."

"He was an artist and all he was interested in was getting the comic moment right, and he was correct to do that, but he should have included me. I would have included the person I was working with. He wasn’t interested in that," she revealed.

She also gave her input on iconic rock star Mick Jagger, who dated her former Vagina Monologues co-star Sophie Dahl.

"He thought he was important, and he is important, but important people should never think they’re important and should never show it if they think it. I just thought he was a tiresome old git," she said.

Margolyes also once claimed that Arnold Schwarzenegger "deliberately" farted in her face on set in 1999, per The Wrap in 2022.

"He was actually quite rude. He farted in my face. Now, I fart, of course, I do — but I don’t fart in people’s faces. He did it deliberately, right in my face," she shared.

She went on to call him "a bit too full of himself."