Color-blind casting is the practice of casting roles without regard to the actor's ethnicity or race.[1] Alternative terms and similar practices include non-traditional casting, integrated casting, or blind casting, which can involve casting without consideration of skin color, body shape, sex or gender. A representative of the Actors' Equity Association has disputed the use of "color blind casting", preferring "non-traditional casting". Non-traditional casting "is defined as the casting of ethnic minority actors in roles where race, ethnicity, or gender is not germane".[2] Race-reversed casting is one form of non-traditional casting.
| Production | Year | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York Shakespeare Festival | 1955 | Joseph Papp started hiring actors of color in his Shakespeare productions.[3] | |
| Tannhäuser | 1961 | Grace Bumbry was cast as Venus in the Wagner opera, becoming the first African-American singer to perform at the Bayreuth Festival.[4] | |
| Batman | 1967 | Eartha Kitt was cast as Catwoman in the third season, taking over the role from the white Julie Newmar.[5] | |
| Night of the Living Dead | 1968 | Duane Jones was cast as Ben, the lead and hero, a role never intended for an African-American.[6] | |
| Never Say Never Again | 1983 | While a non-Eon-produced James Bond movie, the character of Felix Leiter was portrayed by a black person for the first time, played by Bernie Casey. The idea was to make the role more memorable. | |
| After the Fall | 1990 | Josette Simon played Maggie at the London National Theatre in 1990. The role is widely supposed to have been based on Arthur Miller's former wife Marilyn Monroe.[7] [8] | |
| The Shawshank Redemption | 1994 | An adaptation of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The character Red, described as Irish in the novella, is played by Morgan Freeman.[9] | |
| 2000 | British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo played Henry VI of England. Oyelowo was the first black actor to play an English king in a major production of Shakespeare[10] [11] [12] [13] | ||
| Grey's Anatomy | 2005 | During the creation of the television series, none of the characters was assigned a race. Color-blind casting was used to choose the best actors for the roles, resulting in an ethnically diverse cast.[14] | |
| Robin Hood | 2006 | Black British actor David Harewood was cast as Friar Tuck, a character traditionally portrayed as white, overweight, and balding, in "Total Eclipse", the first episode of the third series.[15] | |
| Casino Royale | 2006 | For the first time in the official James Bond film series (Never Say Never Again was not an Eon-produced entry), the character of Felix Leiter, which had consistently been portrayed as white in the Eon-produced series, was portrayed by black actor Jeffrey Wright. Wright portrays the character again in Quantum of Solace and No Time to Die. | |
| Merlin | 2008 | Several actors of colour appeared as extras or in more minor roles throughout the series, with Angel Coulby and Tomiwa Edun in recurring roles as Guinevere and Elyan respectively. [16] | |
| King Lear | 2010 | Black British actress Pippa Bennett-Warner played Cordelia in the 2010 Donmar Warehouse production of King Lear, starring Derek Jacobi in the title role.[17] | |
| Skyfall | 2012 | The role of Miss Moneypenny, which had previously been cast as white, went to Naomie Harris.[18] She reprised the role in the next James Bond films, Spectre and No Time to Die. | |
| National Anthem | John F. Kennedy, who was white, is portrayed by ASAP Rocky in the music video.[19] | ||
| Fantastic Four | 2015 | Black actor Michael B. Jordan played Human Torch, who is White in the comics, and was played in the 2005 film of the same name by White actor Chris Evans. | |
| Doctor Strange | 2016 | British-Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor played Karl Mordo, who is a Transylvanian baron in the comics the film is based on.[20] | |
| Suicide Squad | Deadshot, a white man in the comics, is portrayed by Will Smith in this movie.[21] | ||
| The Girl with All the Gifts | In the British post-apocalyptic zombie horror drama film, based on a M.R. Carey novel of the same name, black actress Sennia Nanua plays main character of Melanie, who is white in the book.[22] | ||
| Dynasty | 2017 | Based on the 1980s series of the same name where both of the lead families are white. In this reboot, the Colby family is portrayed by African-American actors.[23] | |
| Riverdale | Based on the characters and setting of the long-running Archie Comics series, several characters traditionally depicted as white in the comics are portrayed by non-white actors in the series. Most notably, Archie Andrews (the series' lead) is portrayed by KJ Apa, who is of mixed Samoan descent. Veronica Lodge is portrayed by Camila Mendes, who is of Brazilian descent as well as the entire Lodge family has been depicted as being of Latin-American descent in the series.[24] Reggie Mantle is portrayed by Asian-American actors Ross Butler in season 1, and Charles Melton from season 2 onwards, Pop Tate is portrayed by black actor Alvin Sanders and Josie and the Pussycats, a band originally consisting of one black member and two white members in the comics, are converted into an all-black group: Josie and Melody, both previously white, are portrayed by Ashleigh Murray and Hayley Law, respectively.[25] | ||
| Tony Revolori, of Guatemalan heritage, plays Flash Thompson, a white character from the comics previously portrayed in Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3 by Joe Manganiello.[26] | |||
| Beauty and the Beast | Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Plumette, a castle maid who was represented in the 1991 animated film as a white woman.[27] Similarly, Audra McDonald plays Madame de Garderobe, an opera singer who was also white in the animated movie.[28] | ||
| The Dark Tower | Black actor Idris Elba plays Roland Deschain, a character who is described in the Dark Tower series as white and is said to have been inspired by white actor Clint Eastwood.[29] | ||
| Frozen the Musical | Black actor Jelani Alladin plays the character Kristoff, a Scandinavian ice harvester.[30] | ||
| The role of the bounty hunter Valkyrie, based on the Marvel Comics character commonly depicted as white, is played by biracial actress Tessa Thompson.[31] The role of the Asgardian sentry Heimdall, based on the Marvel Comics character depicted as white (also described in the Scandinavian mythology as "the whitest skinned of all the gods"), was played by Black British actor Idris Elba.[32] | |||
| A Series of Unfortunate Events | African-American actor K. Todd Freeman portrayed the character Mr. Poe, who was portrayed by white English actor Timothy Spall in the 2004 film.[33] Indian actor Aasif Mandvi portrayed the character Monty Montgomery who was portrayed by Irish-Scottish actor Billy Connolly in the film. African-American actor Alfre Woodard portrayed the character Aunt Josephine, who was portrayed by white American actress Meryl Streep in the film.[34] | ||
| 1066: A Year to Conquer England | Jotham Annan plays Norman Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester.[35] | ||
| 2018 | The BBC/Netflix co-production, which retells the Iliad, depicts Achilles and Zeus as being black, with the respective roles played by David Gyasi and Hakeem Kae-Kazim.[36] | ||
| Deadpool 2 | The character Domino, drawn in comic books as an albino white woman with a dark patch of skin in a diamond surrounding her left eye, is portrayed by African-American/German actress Zazie Beetz;[37] [38] the anomalous skin patch was instead lighter than the rest of her complexion. The film also features Māori actor Julian Dennison as Rusty Collins / Firefist, a white[39] Oklahoma native in the comics, and biracial actor Lewis Tan (of partial Chinese descent) as Shatterstar, an extraterrestrial who in the comics has the appearance of a white human.[40] | ||
| Fahrenheit 451 | The character Guy Montag, who was portrayed by Austrian actor Oskar Werner in the 1966 adaptation, is portrayed by African-American actor Michael B. Jordan. Additionally, the character Clarisse McClellan (portrayed by Julie Christie in the 1966 film) is played by Algerian actress Sofia Boutella.[41] | ||
| Titans | Senegalese actress Anna Diop plays the superhero Starfire (Princess Koriand'r). An alien who is drawn in comics with orange or golden skin, Starfire has been previously portrayed by white performers and drawn in cartoons with light tan skin, though originally being black-coded.[42] [43] Similarly, the character of Beast Boy is played by Mixed actor Ryan Potter, who is of Japanese descent. This marks the first time in history where a live action superhero team lineup is 50% people of color (the other 50% being Dick Grayson and Rachel Roth, who are portrayed by white Australian actors Brenton Thwaites and Teagan Croft, respectively). | ||
| Colette | Saudi actress Aiysha Hart plays the character Polaire. Polaire is a French woman.[44] | ||
| Mary Queen of Scots | A British historical drama included Gemma Chan as Elizabeth Hardwick and Adrian Lester as Lord Thomas Randolph.[45] | ||
| Les Misérables | British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo plays inspector Javert, who was described as the son of a French man and a Gypsy woman in the original Victor Hugo novel.[46] | ||
| Robin Hood | Jamie Foxx was cast as Little John.[47] | ||
| Krypton | Black British actor Colin Salmon was cast as General Zod, who is traditionally portrayed as white.[48] | ||
| Mean Girls | Korean-American actress Ashley Park played Gretchen Wieners in the Broadway musical of the same name, who is white in the 2004 film of the same name.[49] | ||
| The Witcher | Yennefer is played by half-Indian actress Anya Chalotra, who was a white brunette in the original, similarly done with Vilgefortz (Mahesh Jadu). White character Fringilla Vigo is played by black actress Mimi Ndiweni; Istredd (Royce Pierreson) and Triss Merigold (Anna Shaffer) are also white in books, yet are played by actors of color. The Zerrikanians Tèa and Vèa, who are blonde in the books and based on Scythian warrior women and Greek stories about Amazons, are also played by black actresses.[50] [51] | ||
| The Personal History of David Copperfield | Director Armando Iannuci described his approach as colour-blind[52] when casting Dev Patel as Charles Dickens' titular character. Patel described the casting as "representative of a modern Britain – the one that I grew up in".[53] Nigerian actress Nikki Amuka-Bird plays Mrs Steerforth and Benedict Wong plays Mr Wickfield.[54] [55] | ||
| Artemis Fowl | 2020 | In the novel, the character Butler is described as Eurasian, specifically Russian-Japanese; in the film he is portrayed by British Nigerian Nonso Anozie.[56] [57] | |
| Pakistani-Canadian actor Hamza Haq portrays Syrian doctor Bashir Hamed.[58] | |||
| The Great | Elle Fanning who stars as Catherine the Great in the series spoke of using color-blind casting from the very beginning to make "people from now to be able to relate to the show" and "have everyone represented".[59] Sacha Dhawan, a British-Indian actor, plays Count Orlo, and Abraham Popoola plays Rostov.[60] | ||
| Bridgerton | The show, crested by Shonda Rhimes, employs many actors of color in positions of nobility that historically would have been white, most notably Golda Rosheuvel as the queen, Regé-Jean Page as the Duke of Hastings, and Adjoa Andoh as Lady Danbury.[61] | ||
| The Witches | Based on the Roald Dahl novel, the main character, a young boy, and his grandmother are black; in the book, they are Anglo-Norwegian.[62] | ||
| Mortal Kombat | 2021 | Sisi Stringer portrays Mileena, a character who has a pale complexion in the Mortal Kombat games.[63] | |
| Without Remorse | Michael B. Jordan plays John Clark, a fictional character in the Tom Clancy media franchise traditionally portrayed white.[64] | ||
| Anne Boleyn | Jodie Turner-Smith plays Anne Boleyn.[65] | ||
| The Green Knight | Dev Patel plays Gawain, a fictional character in the King Arthur legend traditionally portrayed white.[66] | ||
| Cruella | Kirby Howell-Baptiste portrays the character Anita Darling, who is white in all previous iterations of 101 Dalmatians.[67] | ||
| Jamie Foxx reprises his role as the supervillain Electro, who is white in the comics.[68] | |||
| Cowboy Bebop | The live-action TV series based on the original 1997 Japanese anime has Mustafa Shakir portraying the character of Jet Black, who is presumed white, and Daniella Pineda, a Mexican-American actor as Faye Valentine, who is Singaporean in the anime.[69] | ||
| A film based on the first two games of the Japanese video game series Resident Evil, biracial actor Avan Jogia portrays the characters Leon Kennedy, who is white in the video game series and was portrayed by white actor Johann Urb, in the original film series. Biracial actor Hannah John-Kamen portrays Jill Valentine, who is white in the video game series.[70] [71] | |||
| The Electrical Life of Louis Wain | British actor Richard Ayoade, the son of a Nigerian father and a Norwegian mother, plays Henry Wood.[72] | ||
| Black actor Naomie Harris plays the character Shriek, who is white in the comics.[73] | |||
| The Tragedy of Macbeth | Black actors Denzel Washington and Corey Hawkins play Lord Macbeth and Macduff, respectively.[74] | ||
| The Irregulars | 2022 | Black actor Royce Pierreson played Doctor John Watson.[75] | |
| The Batman | Jeffrey Wright portrays the usually white American Commissioner Gordon and Zoe Kravitz plays Catwoman.[76] [77] | ||
| House of the Dragon | Steve Toussaint was cast in the role of Corlys Velaryon, and Sonoya Mizuno was cast as Mysaria, though both characters are described as white in the source material, Fire & Blood.[78] [79] [80] [81] | ||
| Matilda the Musical | Lashana Lynch, portrays Miss Honey, who is white in 1988 novel, 1996 film adaptation, and the musical adaptation.[82] | ||
| Halo | Shabana Azmi, an Indian actress, portrays Admiral Margaret Parangosky.[83] | ||
| The Little Mermaid | 2023 | Black singer/actress Halle Bailey portrays Ariel, originally described as white in Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Little Mermaid" and in the 1989 Disney adaptation. Rob Marshall, the director, said she was cast because "she possesses that rare combination of spirit, heart, youth, innocence, and substance — plus a glorious singing voice — all intrinsic qualities necessary to play this iconic role".[84] | |
| The Flash | Colombian actress Sasha Calle portrays Supergirl; she is the first Latina to portray the character.[85] | ||
| Doctor Who | Nathaniel Curtis, a half-Indian actor, plays Isaac Newton.[86] | ||
| Percy Jackson and the Olympians | Black actress Leah Jeffries portrays the character Annabeth Chase, daughter of the Greek goddess Athena, who was described as grey-eyed, blonde-haired white in the books, and played by Alexandra Daddario in the movies.[87] | ||
| Titanic | 2023 - 2024 | A 2023 UK tour had black actress Bree Smith playing Alice Beane (based on Ethel Beane).[88] One reviewer praised Smith's performance but felt it an “odd choice made by the casting team…I couldn’t help but initially think that in an authentic setting, a black woman would not be fangirling over people who most likely wouldn’t treat her very well. The choice doesn’t hurt (but) it can pull you out of the experience if you think too long about the era’s politics that wouldn’t have stopped and the gangplank.”[89] A 2024 Off-Broadway concert as part of the Encores! series, will have Chuck Cooper portray Captain E. J. Smith and Iranian Ramin Karimloo as Frederick Barrett.[90] | |
| Mean Girls | 2024 | Avantika as Karen, Auliʻi Cravalho as Janis and Jaquel Spivey as Damian who are white in 2004 film and the musical adaptation[91] |
The Non-Traditional Casting Project was founded in 1986 to examine problems of racial discrimination in theatre, film and television.[92] The Actors' Equity Association is a co-founder.[93]
In the theatre community, there is significant debate over the concept of color-blind casting vs "color-conscious casting".
In 1996, Pulitzer-winning playwright August Wilson, who is black, used his Princeton University address on black culture in the United States "The Ground on Which I Stand" to attack the notion of color-blind casting.[94]
In 2017, Associate Editor of American Theatre magazine Diep Tran declared "color-conscious" to be a preferable term. "Color-conscious means we're aware of the historic discrimination in the entertainment industry... and we're also aware of what it means to put a body of color onstage.".[95] The idea promotes intentionality and race-conscious affirmative action to avoid racially homogeneous casts, and has been supported widely across the theatre community.[96] [97]
In 2018, the Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law published the article "There's No Business Like Show Business: Abandoning Color-Blind Casting and Embracing Color-Conscious Casting in American Theatre". The article discussed the implications for US employment law and mooted that color-blind casting has not produced its intended result. "Race is still a determining factor in American society, and it is counterintuitive to argue that problems related to race can be fixed by ignoring race altogether".[98] The Broad Online calls a color-blind casting "a superficial solution to a deeper problem."[99]
Popular shows that employ color-conscious casting include: , the BBC's Les Misérables, and the film Mary Queen of Scots (in which the black actor Adrian Lester plays a 16th-century ambassador). In 2017, director Michael Streeter made a color-conscious casting decision for his production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - believing "the decision would add depth to the play". Edward Albee's estate denied permission for the production, stating the casting "would fundamentally change the meaning and message of the play".[100]