A director who was criticised for choosing Sir Anthony Hopkins to play a Jewish holocaust survivor said that it’s his right to cast whoever he wants.
James Gray who is himself Jewish, said it is offensive to claim that Jewish roles should be reserved exclusively for Jewish actors.
According to The Times:
James Gray, a Palme d’Or nominee, said he took “huge offence” at those who believed Jewish roles should go only go to Jewish actors.
His latest film, Armageddon Time, is a semi-autobiographical work based on his Jewish-American upbringing in New York City.
It depicts Hopkins, a double Oscar winner who has publicly spoken about his agnosticism, as Aaron Rabinowitz, the main character’s grandfather and a Jew from Ukraine who escaped the Holocaust.
In an interview with The New York Times, Gray was told that some of the actors playing Jewish characters, particularly Hopkins, “don’t jump out as obviously Jewish”. In response, he argued that casting Jewish actors in Jewish roles could lead to stereotypes.
He said: “I take huge offence to that as well. Because that means what people want is [puts on a Yiddish accent] ‘Hello, I am the Jewish grandfather!’ but that’s not what my grand- father was like.
I’m Jewish — I reserve the right to cast someone like Anthony Hopkins.”
Other decisions to cast actors to play characters of a different race or ethnicity have not been criticised, Gray added. He said: “Does that person watch The Godfather and complain that Marlon Brando is from Omaha, Nebraska, and not an Italian New York guy?
“At some point, we have to acknowledge that our whole function as artists is to try and step into the consciousness of someone else and find compassion and emotional power in doing that.”
Good man James. Tell the snowflakes to fuck right off.
I tell people all the time, pay absolutely no attention to total strangers telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. Tell them to fuck off. Overnight, this world would be a better place if we simply told people to mind their own fucking business.
It’s so liberating,
Say what you really want to say, write what you want to write and be your real self. The only opinions that matter are those of your family and friends.
Fuck everyone else.
Repeat after me. Who the fuck are you? And mind your own fucking business.
Cathartic isn’t it?
