Casting "Appropriate" Actors

[jamedia.uk]

I trust this isn't outside the rules for DVX.

The recent fuss over the non-showing of a comedy program where an ethnically white actor playing a fair skinned Michael Jackson got me thinking. There have been previous rows where able bodied actors have been put in wheel chairs to play disabled characters.

On the other hand AFAIK many a time a white actor has "blacked up" to play Othello. Also Othello has be played by both black actors and white actors without blacking up.

What do directors think? Should actors match the character exactly for ethnicity (if not colour) and disability? Especially where the character is a real historical person?

Though no one seems to mind when one nationality plays another nationality.

 

[KMR]

Oh my goodness. The craft is called "acting" for crying out loud! I do not understand how far people go in arguing that "X cannot play a Y character because X is not Y him-/herself." If we were to take that to the logical extreme, we could never have a hearing actor play a non-hearing character or vice versa, a seeing actor playing a blind character or vice versa, a talented singer playing a tone-deaf character, etc. Whatever works for the creator's vision and intention is what's appropriate. While I admit I don't know all about that particular Michael Jackson thing, my understanding (which might be wrong) is that it was comedy/satire, and having a white actor play the role could very well have been a deliberate choice and totally appropriate for the point it could have been making. (And I repeat: I don't know all the details of that project, so I may be wrong about it.)

Linda Hunt gave an absolutely astounding performance as Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously. Was her casting inappropriate?

 

[Barry_Green]

And let's not forget Shawn and Marlon Wayans' Oscar-nominated roles in this 2004 classic.

I have always felt that how an actor "looks" is far and away the least important aspect to casting. What matters is - can the actor convey the role? If the actor "looks" the part, but cannot "play" the part, then the film will suck. If the actor can "play" the part, then makeup and wardrobe can make them "look" the part.

There is a matter of opportunity that may become a factor though. I worked with a number of injured Marines, at a training school, and one of the exercises that the school ran was for combat simulations and in those simulations they hired amputees to play roles such as IED blast victims. Could it have been done with special effects? Maybe, but - why, when you had people who could portray it more realistically and in fact were limited as to the type of jobs that they could otherwise get?

You said "There have been previous rows where able bodied actors have been put in wheel chairs to play disabled characters. " Yes, there certainly have. Joan of Arcadia cast an able-bodied Jason Ritter as the wheelchair-bound big brother. A reasonable question would be -- why him? Was he the only actor who could play the part? Was there, in fact, no wheelchair-bound actor who could have done as well? Because while Ritter could have played a wheelchair-bound role, he could also have played a walking role, and the wheelchair-bound actor could not have. So there has been lobbying on the part of disabled actors to request producers and directors to prioritize disabled actors for disabled roles. I have no problem with that; if I could find a wheelchair-bound actor who portrays the role just as well as an able-bodied actor, then why wouldn't I give the wheelchair-bound actor the preference? Especially because as he lives that life every day, he should theoretically be able to bring a level of authenticity and depth to it that an able-bodied actor could only "act" at. Now, I don't remember the Joan of Arcadia series that well, but I do remember it involved God as a primary role, so it's entirely possible that Jason Ritter's character would be healed at some point in the series and walk out of that wheelchair, or that they would show flashbacks of him before his accident, and that would necessitate an able-bodied actor.

Though no one seems to mind when one nationality plays another nationality.

Ain't that the truth. Watch any late-night talk show, it seems like half the actors they interview are Brits or Aussies playing Americans. We all know that many of the roles on The Walking Dead are played by Brits. I had no idea the FBI director on "Blindspot" was Australian until I saw an interview. Does it affect our ability to watch those shows and to believe in those characters? To me, not one whit. Did the American audience complain when Japanese Pat Morita was cast to play the Emperor of China in "Mulan"? I don't recall there being any uproar in America, but I would imagine it wouldn't go over too well in China if they tried something like that today.

Should actors match the character exactly for ethnicity (if not colour) and disability?

It depends on the role, and on what the director is trying to say with the casting choice. Needless to say, racial identity and racial politics are very much a thing, and when you're talking about someone's own father, then yes, Paris Jackson might have reason to be upset or offended. You'd better have a very good reason for doing something that so much of the audience may think is offensive or insensitive. If you do have a good reason, then it had better come through. "White Chicks" was a farce. It was specifically a race comedy, so -- yes, they had a good reason. Comedy frequenty relies on outrage, or borders on it. Sacha Baron Cohen is not, in fact, from Kazakhstan, he's a Brit of Jewish descent, but that didn't stop him from playing "Borat". Peter Sellers was not an Indian, but he played one (in brownface even) in "The Party".

"blackface" is pretty much absolutely taboo in American society nowadays, but even then that can be breached if you have a very good reason; Robert Downey Jr. basically pulled it off in "Tropic Thunder" but, again, that was specifically a comedic role (and wasn't without controversy).

Generally I think the question answers itself in the topic of authenticity. A white man in blackface is almost certainly not going to exude the same authenticity of character, as an ethnically-compatible actor would. The white man may be a better "actor", but the black man is almost certainly the better "black man", and there are plenty of very good black actors, so -- WHY would you try to cross that ethnic line? What is so important about it? An able-bodied actor may be able to believably portray a wheelchair-bound character, but a wheelchair-bound actor might exude more authenticity, so why go with the able-bodied? What's so important about that to you? If you have a good reason, then do what you think is right. If you don't have a good reason, then - why are you doing it?

 

[Josh Bass]

not to be cynical (which I super am) but I would think it comes down to how the powers that be think it affects how many people see the movie/show, i.e revenue. If they think a black Spider-Man is going to make less money, they're gonna cast a white guy.

 

[lambert]

Many college theater departments believe in and practice color blind casting. I worked for a casting director in new mexico and she worked very hard to get as many diverse actors who could work for the role as possible on tape and in front of the people making the decisions. Now if you came to new mexico why would you want to cast all Anglos, seems silly unless for some incredibly specific role. Native American roles can be tricky, how far do you take it, is it inappropriate to cast an actor who is Seminole to play a Lakota or Inuet character? There was some backlash when Lou diamond Phillips played in LA bamba for not being Mexican American . Also some criticism of the casting of martin Luther king Jr. Film. With an actor who wasn't "black enough". Most of us will never make casting decisions on major Hollywood films but many of us will and have made decisions on smaller projects that ask the same questions bigger films should be asking. Is this right for the project? Is this right and fair in the way I'm arriving at these casting decisions with the circumstances I've been dealt? Can I live with these decisions and defend them to myself? If you ask those questions I think you'll almost always make the right decision. To bad Hollywood rarely does.

 

[KMR]

But of course, theater and cinema are two quite different art forms. What might work for one might not work for the other. With live theater, the audience is expected to use its imagination to complete what they see on the stage. Theater demands much more from the audience. Whereas in cinema, the audience expects much more realism.

 

[DLD]

I draw a line on Alex Rocco playing Mo Green. Which was almost as bad as Warren Beatty playing Bugsy Siegel.

Of course, Rocco stole his scene. Beatty was kind of blah.

And, Barry, Peter Sellers wasn't even French!

 

[OldCorpse]

Consider, that whomever you may pick today with great applausse, could be seen with angry boos tomorrow ... times change, the society changes, the moral code changes. By a coincidence, I just got through marathon watching all the available Charlie Chan movies. Charlie Chan was a character created by a white writer (Earl Derr Biggers) based on a real-life Hawaian Chinese-American detective Chang Apana.

When Hollywood started making movies based on that character, he was played by a variety of actors from different ethnic/racial backgrounds. Interestingly enough, the first few films made, used East-Asian actors - in other words, ethnically "correct" - but for whatever reasons, those films flopped. Should the producers have kept on trying to make more Charlie Chan films with "ethnic" actors, if they believed that it would never work? You can't - filmmaking is a business, simply unsustainable with only losses. One can argue as to why those films flopped - badly made, the lead actors were poor, audiences were not ready for such actors - who knows. It's not inconceivable that at the time there simply were not East-Asian male actors who could carry a movie, because there weren't many East-Asian actors to begin with (partially due to discrimination, of course). There certainly were some actors who could do well in B-roles (as Charlie Chan movies proved!), but carrying a movie is a whole 'nother ball game. So should the producers have abandoned Charlie Chan movies rather than employ white actors?

The first white actor in the Charlie Chan role - Warner Oland - was of Swedish background, but did not use any "yellow-face" makeup. After Oland made his Chan movies, the role was taken over by another white actor Sidney Toler (and a couple more after those series of movies) who in fact did use "yellow-face". Today, of course, we see "yellow-face" as egregious (just as "black-face"). But here is what's interesting: great numbers of Asian-Americans of the time, and also Chinese in China, saw those movies in an incredibly positive light, as validating and humanizing positive characters who were non-existant before when people of East-Asian background were portrayed in incredibly negative racist ways (Fu-Manchu etc.). And more Charlie Chan movies were made in China (and also Mexico!). These films were incredibly popular with audiences - as a matter of fact Charlie Chan movies sustained Fox Studios through many years of losses and saved the studio from bankruptcy. They were a gold mine for decades, and did a lot for the social progress of East-Asians in the U.S.

Today, of course, that positive image has been completely re-evaluated and is seen as racist, patronizing, and generally very negative. But that doesn't take away from the fact that at the time they were downright progressive. Should the producers of the day have given up on making Charlie Chan movies altogether rather than casting white actors at the time? That would've met perhaps with approval today, decades later, but it would've deprived audiences of the time, such as Chinese audiences in China from what they saw as real progress and a positive character.

That is a frequent trajectory - to take just one example of "Uncle Tom", today that is a deep insult, but the origin is from an anti-slavery novel that was in a very real sense responsible for turning a lot of the public opinion toward the abolishionist cause. But what was then seen as a very positive character, was later seen as patronizing and ultimately became an insult. Should therefore Harriet Beecher Stowe not written her novel with a portrayal that the readership of the day would accept? Perhaps that would've avoided giving ground for the creation of an insult, but it would've been a real disservice to the cause of public opinion wrt. abolition.

And so it goes for the portrayal of disadvantaged, marginalized and excluded groups in film and media in general.

There is no assurance that what you think today is a brave and forward casting choice might not be seen as a deep insult tomorrow. All you can do is try to make choices that benefit the material and that are possible in the business and social environment of the moment - trying to approach this using purely political criteria is a hopeless enterprise - there will be no "right" choices though certainly there can be "wrong" choices.

 

[rob norton]

Many college theater departments believe in and practice color blind casting. I worked for a casting director in new mexico and she worked very hard to get as many diverse actors who could work for the role as possible on tape and in front of the people making the decisions. Now if you came to new mexico why would you want to cast all Anglos, seems silly unless for some incredibly specific role. Native American roles can be tricky, how far do you take it, is it inappropriate to cast an actor who is Seminole to play a Lakota or Inuet character? There was some backlash when Lou diamond Phillips played in LA bamba for not being Mexican American . Also some criticism of the casting of martin Luther king Jr. Film. With an actor who wasn't "black enough". Most of us will never make casting decisions on major Hollywood films but many of us will and have made decisions on smaller projects that ask the same questions bigger films should be asking. Is this right for the project? Is this right and fair in the way I'm arriving at these casting decisions with the circumstances I've been dealt? Can I live with these decisions and defend them to myself? If you ask those questions I think you'll almost always make the right decision. To bad Hollywood rarely does.

What's color blind casting?

 

[DLD]

What's color blind casting?

It's when the German Tiger tank was actually a Soviet T-54 with a wooden superstructure overlay in "Saving Private Ryan". But, for WWII buffs, one couldn't mistake Tiger's overlapping bogies with the Soviet tank's Christie suspension. Of course, there's only one running Tiger in existence (in Bovington) while there are plenty of T-54's around.

And I hear T-54 had a better agent.

 

[lambert]

Color blind casting is used in many college and theater companies to find the best actor for the role regardless of the traditional casting of certain roles. Fences might have actors who aren't African american in the cast. It can also extend to roles written for a certain gender. I can't think of any film or director who used color blind casting exclusively in cinema. Although many mumblecore / fassbinder films wouldn't have lost a step if they employed this technique.

 

[rob norton]

Thanks for the answer. Seems like it'd be much tougher to pull of in cinema.

 

[Jimmy Pierce]

I often think about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Personally I think the character could easily have been played by an Asian actor. Sure he was funny, but the role went beyond just playing a part, because he was impersonating a nationality. It's a lot different than say Robert Downey Jr in Tropic Thunder because his role was a parody of actors fully embodying themselves in a role.

I agree if the actor can play the role well, go for it. But there is a line, and it has been crossed.

Can't think of a film where a historical figure was played by someone of a different ethnicity. A Caucasian playing Martin Luther King Jr just wouldn't work. The public would have a sh#% fit, anyway.

British actors playing American, vice versa. That is fine if they can pull it off.

My work has talked about people without disabilities playing people with disabilities. Unfortunately that community is criminally underused in a lot of society including acting. So again, it sometimes does go beyond just an actor taking on a role, regardless of whether they can do it.