In the most recent adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,” the director Baz Luhrmann was lauded for filling his film with a diverse cast. In addition to the white actors playing the lead roles, many actors of color were cast as supporting characters.
An analysis of the top-grossing movies of 2013 by the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism found that 26.3 percent of all speaking or named characters were from nonwhite racial/ethnic groups, which is a small increase since 2012. But even in this version of “Gatsby” — in which Hispanics and African-Americans play servants and party guests — there are still no Asian-American lead characters.
For this graphic, we examined all aspects of “The Great Gatsby” cast and crew to see how diversity compared behind the scenes on one of Hollywood’s biggest films.
Celebrity is a beast that feeds on our insecurities, and its prey are the young. The young and impressionable, who have yet to understand that fame is not a meritocracy, who believe that the people we see in magazines are better than we are. It’s simple to sell movies and music to teenagers: They want to be famous more than they want anything else.
Everyone knows this, but we don’t talk about it too much because the entire system would fall apart without its most important component: denial.
Which brings us back to Gatsby, a movie made by adults who grew up on celebrity culture but now find it embarrassing — or at least worthy of an ironic wink. The actors are all there because they are big stars (and also because DiCaprio is producing), and the movie is shot through with references to “the parties” and “the scene” — by which Luhrmann means the parties where celebrities hang out and be photographed for magazines. But he never quite explains why these characters care so much about being photographed for magazines — why fame matters to them at all. Luhrmann mentions Instagram once (“You could get yourself quite a following on Instagram,” Tom tells
The Great Gatsby has been transformed from the novel loved by millions to a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire. The film, out May 10, is full of beautiful people in beautiful clothes doing beautiful things, but behind the scenes of Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation there are some intriguing details. Here’s what you need to know:
On a recent visit to the set in Sydney, Australia, we learned that DiCaprio was not Luhrmann’s first choice for Jay Gatsby. DiCaprio had always been the actor on top of Luhrmann’s list for the lead role, but because of scheduling conflicts with his other projects — including working on Django Unchained with Quentin Tarantino — he initially couldn’t sign on to play Gatsby.
The part was then offered to Will Smith, who was Luhrmann’s second choice for the role. But Smith also couldn’t commit because of scheduling conflicts with Men in Black 3. With both actors unable to take on the role, Luhrmann moved on and began filming with Maguire for his third collaboration together (the two previous films were The Great Gatsby and Romeo + Juliet).
When Leo finally became available three weeks into production,
Actors:
Robert Redford – Jay Gatsby
Mia Farrow – Daisy Buchanan
Bruce Dern – Tom Buchanan
Karen Black – Myrtle Wilson
Scott Wilson – George Wilson
Sam Waterston – Nick Carraway
Director: Jack Clayton (“Room at the Top”)
In this case, it’s easy to look at the cast and say, “Oh, well, white people are more marketable.” But that’s not true, for a couple reasons.
First of all, in Jordan Baker’s case in particular, I just don’t believe that there is no actress in her twenties (or older) who could have given that performance. In the book, Jordan Baker is the Daisy-adjacent character who tells Nick Carraway how she cheated to win golf tournaments. She is also mentioned as being very beautiful and physically talented. When you think of the actresses with those qualities—and current fame—you get Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone right off the bat. One or both of them would have been a fine choice for Jordan Baker. But they’re not alone: there are also Elizabeth Olsen, Shailene Woodley and Dakota Fanning—and this list doesn’t even include my actual dream pick for Jordan Baker: Allison Williams, who has proved on Girls to be more than capable of playing someone like this character.
Surely one or two of these young women would have agreed to take on Jordan Baker if asked; perhaps even more would have if given a
In the novel, Nick mentions Gatsby’s “Oxford accent,” and says that Gatsby “told me once he was an Oxford man.” This is a reference to Jay Gatsby’s real identity as James Gatz. On this blog, the director of the film, Baz Luhrmann, explained that he did not have DiCaprio speak with a British accent in order to preserve the ambiguity of Gatsby’s identity.
Luhrmann refers to his adaptation as a “faithful but contemporized adaptation” of Fitzgerald’s classic story. The more you understand about Fitzgerald’s life and writing process, the more you will appreciate what Baz did here. Consider this paragraph from “The Crack-Up”:
“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life,” Fitzgerald wrote in a 1936 essay called “The Crack-Up.” This is how I felt when I saw DiCaprio’s portrayal of Gatsby for the first time.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a popular novel that has remained one of the best-known literary works to this day. Set in the 1920s, the story is narrated by a young man named Nick Carraway who has recently moved to New York City and is befriended by his neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. One day, Nick is invited to one of Gatsby’s extravagant parties and there he meets Daisy Buchanan, his cousin, who happens to be married to Tom Buchanan.
Nick soon learns that Gatsby knew Daisy five years ago and has been in love with her ever since. Since then, he has dedicated himself to making enough money so he can win her back from Tom. Nick decides to play matchmaker for his neighbor and invites Daisy over for tea without telling her about Gatsby’s feelings for her first. When she arrives at Nick’s house and sees Gatsby waiting outside, she is shocked but also thrilled at the thought of seeing him again after all these years. However things don’t go as planned when Tom shows up unexpectedly at the party looking for Daisy…
