Steven Spielberg is "very happy" he turned down the Harry Potter franchise, thanks for asking

When Dumbledore told his young protégé “it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live” in the first Harry Potter film, he could also have been speaking to his almost-director, Steven Spielberg. That’s right, folks: we almost had a Steven Spielberg Sorcerer’s Stone. Let that one sink in for a second. But while you’re processing, you should also know that Spielberg is perfectly content that this particular dream passed him by, thank you very much.

While not explicitly related to J.K. Rowling’s rampant transphobia, The Fabelmans director is the latest Hollywood figure to publicly distance himself from Harry Potter and the Wizarding World. In a recent Variety interview with RRR director S.S. Rajamouli, Spielberg revealed that he suffered his own Fabelmans-esque crisis of whether to move for work or stay for family in the early 2000s, when he was offered Sorcerer’s Stone. Unlike his own parents (at least as depicted in the recent Oscar-nominated film), Spielberg chose to stay.

“The personal meaning about [how the conflict between] art and family will tear you in half happened to me later, after I had already established myself as a filmmaker, as a working director,” he said. “Kate [Capshaw] and I started raising a family and we started having children. The choice I had to make was taking a job that would move me to another country for four or five months where I wouldn’t see my family every day…That was a ripping kind of experience.”

He continued: “There were several films I chose not to make. I chose to turn down the first Harry Potter to basically spend that next year and a half with my family, my young kids growing up. So I’d sacrificed a great franchise, which today looking back I’m very happy to have done, to be with my family.”

Despite this loss, Spielberg did work this whole period and released A.I. Artificial Intelligence in 2001—the only difference being that A.I. was filmed largely near his home in Los Angeles while Potter would have required him to move to London for the duration of the shoot. And while HP might have been a nice feather in Spielberg’s already impressive cap (at least, you know, before Rowling decided to annihilate her legacy and reputation), he seems to be doing pretty well for himself, all things considered. And by “all things considered,” we of course mean the loss of the franchise he’s actually upset about: Mare Of Easttown (which no one actually approached him for in the first place). Good luck getting over that one, Steven!