Miriam Margolyes has defended JK Rowling after saying that she "admires her" and that people's anger towards the author is "misplaced".
The Harry Potter actress also offered to mediate between JK and Emma Watson, who appeared to take aim at her during the BAFTAS.
Miriam's comments come after the world-famous author remains in a bitter debate over her views on transgender women.
Speaking of her own experience Miriam said that when she was a student at Oxford one of her classmates showed her his wardrobe full of women's clothes.
The 80-year-old actress said that he told her that he wanted to transition to a woman.
Miriam, who has been with her wife Heather since 1968, told Radio Times : "There is a spectrum and people can be anywhere along that.”
“There isn’t one answer to all these trans questions. We all know people who are slightly pansy or a bit butch or whatever you call it.
"But I think the vituperation that JK Rowling has received is misplaced. I don’t know her at all. I admire her as a human being. She’s a generous woman, she’s a brilliant writer.
She also said that she believed that if people were kinder to each other "a lot of the misery would disappear".
The actress added that she would happily arbitrate between her former co-star Emma Watson, who disagrees strongly with JK.
“I would if anybody asked me,” she told the publication.
Proud feminist Emma appeared to throw shade at JK during her speech at the BAFTAS.
After she was welcomed to the stage by Rebel Wilson who quipped: "Here to present the next award is Emma Watson. She calls herself a feminist, but we all know she’s a witch."
To which Emma replied: "I’m here for ALL the witches."
Miriam has spoken out about her journey with understanding her own sexuality, and said that she still fears her coming out as gay was one of the things that brought her mother's stroke on.
JK Rowling has been excluded from a Platinum Jubilee reading list, despite writing one of the most popular books of all time.
Some of those to make the cut include A Clockwork Orange by Anthony burgess, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Carre.
However, the initiative's co-founder, BBC Arts, insist that the choice had nothing to do with the transgender debate.
While Susheila Nasta, a judge in the contest and emeritus professor of modern literature at Queen Mary and Westfield University said: “There was a big discussion about JK Rowling.
“She was on the long-list with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. A space was cleared for someone equally as good but whose work was not as well-known. There were some very tricky decisions,” she told The Sunday Times.
The argument first began in 2020 after JK retweeted an op-ed piece which focused on "people who menstruate".
The Harry Potter author had an issue with the fact that the story didn't use the word women.
"'People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” she tweeted.
The tweet was met with backlash, with many calling her "transphobic".
But the author didn't back down, she went on to write: "If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.
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"I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth,” she tweeted.
“The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women—i.e., to male violence—‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences—is a nonsense.”
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