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Actors should be a good match for the role they play. That includes accent, build, height, sex, attractiveness, characterization (Will Smith couldn't play Sauro

Actors should be a good match for the role they play. That includes accent, build, height, sex, attractiveness, characterization (Will Smith couldn't play Sauron) and skin colour.

tptacek 4y ago
So, what you're trying to tell us is that Denzel Washington was miscast in The Tragedy of Macbeth? Presumably also Ira Aldridge as King Lear. What's especially funny about this is that your criteria disqualifies Shakespearean theater in the time of Shakespeare.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  Not op, but I believe he meant that casting in theater and cinema are different. "In film and television, the audition is called a screen test, and it is filmed so that the casting director or director can see how the actor appears on screen." > disqualifies Shakespearean theater in the time of Shakespeare Ira Aldridge was born a couple centuries later than Shakespeare's King Lear. Theater and movies are different media, if you wanna put up a play about Matrix you need actors that are able to act and to fight like in the movie, which I guess are not that many. If you're shooting a movie, you simply hire stunt doubles. Cinema is a fiction, it's not a live performance. Most of the times main actors are there because they are popular and help the movie promotion.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I'm not sure if you noticed that I gave examples both in film and on stage.
kasey_junk 4y ago
The cast of Hamilton has a few things to say to you.
- tzs 4y ago
  If you are referring to "Hamilton" using a diverse cast to play characters that were white in reality, I'm not sure that is a good example. The commenter above said "Actors should be a good match for the role they play". I haven't seen "Hamilton", but from what I've read it has little or no mention of slavery. When you don't have slavery in a story set in that era the character's race usually isn't important for the role so the actor's race doesn't matter.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    ... when does the actor's race matter? It would when the story is about racial tension, I suppose: it'll be a century or more before you could have a white actor play Malcolm X. But most of the time, it doesn't matter that you've recast, say, Johnny Rico from Starship Troopers as a white character. Regardless, the criteria above about actors needing to match their characters in every detail is risibly ahistorical and unmoored from any principle of film or theater; it's pure applesauce, rationalization pretending at erudition.
legulere 4y ago
That really depends if those attributes are an important part of the character, how well the actor can fake those (e.g. Hugh Laurie without British accent in house md), and what you want to achieve. Jesus for instance most likely had a bit darker skin, but it makes sense to make him more similar to your target audience, so people can better identify with him.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > Jesus for instance most likely had a bit darker skin, but it makes sense to make him more similar to your target audience It's a bit more complicated than that. In most of the paintings you'll find Jesus has a darker skin tone (and hair) Then in 1940 Warner Sallman’s created the popular light-eyed, light-haired Christ [1], Sallman worked for advertising and marketed the picture worldwide. [1] https://images.theconversation.com/files/346421/original/file-20200708-3995-5ulgxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip https://images.theconversation.com/files/346421/original/fil...

Actors should be a good match for the role they play. That includes accent, build, height, sex, attractiveness, characterization (Will Smith couldn't play Sauron) and skin colour.

tptacek 4y ago

So, what you're trying to tell us is that Denzel Washington was miscast in The Tragedy of Macbeth? Presumably also Ira Aldridge as King Lear. What's especially funny about this is that your criteria disqualifies Shakespearean theater in the time of Shakespeare.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
Not op, but I believe he meant that casting in theater and cinema are different. "In film and television, the audition is called a screen test, and it is filmed so that the casting director or director can see how the actor appears on screen." > disqualifies Shakespearean theater in the time of Shakespeare Ira Aldridge was born a couple centuries later than Shakespeare's King Lear. Theater and movies are different media, if you wanna put up a play about Matrix you need actors that are able to act and to fight like in the movie, which I guess are not that many. If you're shooting a movie, you simply hire stunt doubles. Cinema is a fiction, it's not a live performance. Most of the times main actors are there because they are popular and help the movie promotion.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I'm not sure if you noticed that I gave examples both in film and on stage.

kasey_junk 4y ago

The cast of Hamilton has a few things to say to you.

tzs 4y ago
If you are referring to "Hamilton" using a diverse cast to play characters that were white in reality, I'm not sure that is a good example. The commenter above said "Actors should be a good match for the role they play". I haven't seen "Hamilton", but from what I've read it has little or no mention of slavery. When you don't have slavery in a story set in that era the character's race usually isn't important for the role so the actor's race doesn't matter.
- tptacek 4y ago
  ... when does the actor's race matter? It would when the story is about racial tension, I suppose: it'll be a century or more before you could have a white actor play Malcolm X. But most of the time, it doesn't matter that you've recast, say, Johnny Rico from Starship Troopers as a white character. Regardless, the criteria above about actors needing to match their characters in every detail is risibly ahistorical and unmoored from any principle of film or theater; it's pure applesauce, rationalization pretending at erudition.

legulere 4y ago

That really depends if those attributes are an important part of the character, how well the actor can fake those (e.g. Hugh Laurie without British accent in house md), and what you want to achieve. Jesus for instance most likely had a bit darker skin, but it makes sense to make him more similar to your target audience, so people can better identify with him.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> Jesus for instance most likely had a bit darker skin, but it makes sense to make him more similar to your target audience It's a bit more complicated than that. In most of the paintings you'll find Jesus has a darker skin tone (and hair) Then in 1940 Warner Sallman’s created the popular light-eyed, light-haired Christ [1], Sallman worked for advertising and marketed the picture worldwide. [1] https://images.theconversation.com/files/346421/original/file-20200708-3995-5ulgxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip https://images.theconversation.com/files/346421/original/fil...