You’re told you can’t play a role because of your skin color. Despite the fact that you are a good actor, despite the fact that you are right for the role, despite the fact that it’s hard enough to get work as an actor in New York City, despite other actors who have been hired in roles not intended for their race, despite the fact that you could take a year off and do nothing but file complaints with every agency under the sun, despite all this, you’re told you can’t play a role because of your skin color.
It is a confusing feeling. It’s a feeling that has happened to me more than once. It’s not just happening to me though. It’s happening to so many actors of color. The struggle of being an actor is real enough; the struggle of being an actor of color is somehow even more real.
The question is what to do about it? I don’t know. My first impulse is to write about it, because writing about things helps me understand them. But I don’t want this post to be about me. There are plenty of articles out there about my experience as a white actor being turned down for roles written for actors of color.
What I want to do here is start a conversation
(Note: This blog is a guest post by my friend and colleague, actor, Jennifer Paz. I’m so happy to share her words with you! – Rebecca)
Hello friends!
I am here to share my experience being told that I can’t play a role because of the color of my skin. There are two stories really, but they both fall under this umbrella. They were painful experiences, but there was also growth that came out of it.
The first story happened when I was auditioning for a school production of Bye Bye Birdie (I was in high school at the time). The female lead is Kim MacAfee, and she had a love interest named Hugo Peabody. The director had made the decision (however he came to it) that Hugo would be played by an actor who was Filipino. (Fun fact: I am Filipino.) It was something that had never been done before in our production history and I thought it was a brilliant idea. I read for Kim and it went well, but ultimately another girl got the part. However, I remember feeling incredibly excited about playing Hugo because there had already been talk about casting me as him since my last show with the school had ended. Hugo is such a goofy character and I
I was told that a role I was up for “wasn’t right for me” because I was black.
Recently, while I was auditioning for a role, the casting director told me she felt the character wasn’t right for me because of my skin color. She said she’s been dealing with this issue since the early ’90s and it still hasn’t changed in 2016. In fact, she also mentioned that one of the writers wrote an original pilot specifically for her and her husband, who are both black. Together they created a show that took them two years to write, only to be told by network executives that they couldn’t cast them in the roles they created because “black people don’t watch television.”
I’ve been reading scripts nonstop and most of them have white actors playing characters with background stories similar to mine — characters who are not white. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. The majority of roles in film and television are written for white characters. When people of color audition for these roles, we are considered “other.” At times I’ve also noticed that there’s a tendency to cast certain ethnicities into stereotypical roles. Many times, there aren’t any actors of color in major roles. Sometimes we’re not even included as
If you are an actor of color, and you find yourself in this position, here is what I would like you to know.
You can be mad. You can be upset that the role you were up for was not supposed to be a role for someone who looks like you. You can be frustrated and angry about the casting choices being made in Hollywood. You can feel confused as to how this happens in 2015. You can even call it discrimination (because it is).
You should express your anger, disappointment and frustration with friends, family and professional colleagues. You should explore those feelings so they don’t turn into bitterness or cynicism about the industry. And then I want you to let it go.
Why? Because every time someone says “you’re too [insert color] for this” they have also said “you will never play anything but [insert color].” And if you buy into that idea, if you let that put a chip on your shoulder or poison your spirit or make you question your talent, then they will have won.
I’ve seen it happen time and time again with other actors who are not Caucasian. They begin to think of themselves as “ethnic,” which is the kiss of death to any career path they may have been building toward general leading
I’m not talking about a “role of a lifetime.”
I cherish the incredible roles that have come my way. But I have been sent scripts with subject matter that deals directly with my heritage. Oftentimes, these are stories told by and about people of color. And I have been directed to be in an audition room with a handful of other actors where we are all ethnically the same. These experiences amount to nothing more than someone taking a glance at me and assuming I am incapable of bringing something new to the table.
It’s not just in the audition room where I’ve experienced this kind of behavior. I was on set when someone made a comment about how they wanted someone “ethnically ambiguous” for a role. This person had no idea that I was standing right behind them when they said it. They were referring to another actor who was standing next to me, who is ethnically ambiguous as well — but in a very different way than me!
In another instance, I was on set and overheard some inappropriate comments made during a fitting. Two people were discussing how they were going to make sure they didn’t cast too many white actors in an ensemble because it would make the show look bad if there weren’t enough actors of color represented. When
I have been a performer for 30 years. I have worked on Broadway, in film, television and commercials. I have seen many changes in the industry, but by far this is the most exciting. The conversation about race in entertainment has begun. There is a real opportunity to create more roles for actors of color and tell more stories that reflect our diverse world.
I was recently asked by a reporter if I had ever been told to “whiten” up my resume to get work. My answer was, “Yes.” In fact, I still am asked to do so. And there are many reasons why we do this as performers of color. But at what cost?
The simple answer is: if we want to work and pay our bills we whiten up our resume. For women of color it’s not just whitening your resume but also changing your name to something more ethnically ambiguous like Emily Park or Lauren Chang instead of Latanya Richardson or LaTanya Richardson Jackson. (Those are my real names.) We don’t think twice about it because it’s what we’ve been doing for years … decades!
I love Josh Gad, but I hate the conversation we are having about his role in Disney’s new live-action Beauty and the Beast.
I was in a voice lesson last week when my teacher brought it up. “Did you see that they hired Josh Gad to play LeFou?” she said angrily. “He whitewashed another role.”
It’s not surprising that she felt this way. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I’ll catch you up: In Beauty and the Beast, LeFou is Gaston’s sidekick. He has no real purpose other than to make Gaston look good and to show how awful he truly is (and to sing a few songs). The character is traditionally played by a white actor, usually with a heavy French accent. In this live-action version, Gad — who is white — plays LeFou; his accent is less pronounced and he doesn’t appear to be French at all.
It’s particularly upsetting that this role was taken from an actor of color because of what it represents: This was one of the only roles for an out gay man in a family film this year. It’s been incredibly difficult for actors who are both gay and people of color — especially those from the LGBTQ community —
