The Only 'New' Thing About Cross-Cultural Casting Is Who's Getting The Roles

The Only 'New' Thing About Cross-Cultural Casting Is Who's Getting The Roles Enlarge this image toggle caption A24 A24 From the debates and the hype on social media about unconventional casting choices lately, you might think the world was about to spin off its axis. Sponsor Message "For what it's worth," wrote The Guardian's Lucy Mangan in a review of that last opus, "I am aware that Anne Boleyn wasn't black, but I'm also aware that she wasn't Claire Foy, Merle Oberon, Helena Bonham Carter or any of the other women who have played her over the years, and my brain is not unduly upset by any of it." Shakespeare penned his tragedy in 1603, and it's rife with references — "an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe" — to the title character's African origins. Director Armando Iannucci decided on colorblind casting for The Personal History of David Copperfield, filling the screen behind Patel's dashing Dickensian hero with Black aristocratic mothers of white sons, Asian fathers of Black daughters — giving the film's world far more diversity than even mid-empire London would have possessed. Enlarge this image toggle caption Dean Rogers/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Dean Rogers/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation "There is such a lot of talent there," he told an interviewer shortly after the film's premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.