[Impy]

I’m sure she can act, and perhaps casting actors of a different race than their characters is a bad idea all around (John Wayne as Genghis Kahn!! The role that gave him and a lot of other people cancer), but that misses my point.

A big Hollywood movie will generally want to cast name actors in major roles to draw fans of that actor to see the film. Compared to Ms. Mara, Ms. Kilcher is little known.

I’ll mention strange casting that really gets to me. In some depictions Cleopatra and Hannibal are portrayed as Black (Hannibal looked liked “The Rock” on the History channel). Ancient Egyptians were not Black and Cleopatra was an inbred Greek anyway, it’s entirely mystifying why some people want to insist she was Black. And while there were Blacks in Carthage, it’s very unlikely the upper-class Barca family was among them. Roman busts of Hannibal looked nothing like the actor who played him on the History Channel thing I saw (Bald, Shirtless, Beardless, light skinned Black man).

[BillyBoy]

>> perhaps casting actors of a different race than their characters is a bad idea all around <<

I don't think the actor's ethnicity or race is a problem at all it (it was silly when Mexican-Americans went nuts because a Puetro Rican actress had been cast to play Mexican singer Selena). The issue is believability. Neither Ricardo Mountlebaun or Benedict Cumberbatch is remotely related by ancestry to someone from the India subcontinent. But Richardo Moutanlebaun could believably portray a suave, arrogant former Sikh warlord named Khan Noonien Singh, whereas Cumberbatch was just some obviously British guy doing a sinister Hannibal Lecter type character:

>> A big Hollywood movie will generally want to cast name actors in major roles to draw fans of that actor to see the film. Compared to Ms. Mara, Ms. Kilcher is little known. <<

Lou Diamond Philips is another good example of the above scenario. He gets cast as American Indians all the time. Ethnically, he's only 1/8th american Indian ancestry. But nobody has a problem with the casting, because Lou Diamond Philips is believable in the roles and looks more native american than he is:

Now, compare Ms. Kilcher to Ms. Mara and which one fits how people would imagine "Tiger Lily" from Peter Pan if she was a real life person:

>> Ancient Egyptians were not Black and Cleopatra was an inbred Greek anyway, it’s entirely mystifying why some people want to insist she was Black. And while there were Blacks in Carthage, it’s very unlikely the upper-class Barca family was among them. <<

I agree, Cleopatra was definitely not black. I've seen Hollywood depict her as such, but the only people I've seen in real life argue that she's black are black people (who don't seem to be aware that she is NOT a positive role model in history). But they argue Jesus was black, too. A bit off topic, but some talking head informed me that Carmen Sandiego of the "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? is supposed to be "latina" and that she's an "inspiration to young latinas all over the world" (news to me, if that guy ever played the game, he'd figure out she's the antagonist that the player is trying to catch and send to prison because she's a pathologically lying thief).

In any case, I don't think Cleopatra looked anything like Elizabeth Taylor, either. The 1999 Cleopatra was a pretty crappy movie, but I did think the casting of the title character was done well:

Actually, the one that irks me the most is the way Hollywood depicts an entirely fictional fantasy character. It's the tooth fairy! They keep casting fat ugly middle aged men in the role. I don't know if they're trying to be "funny" with the people they cast or whatever, but it doesn't work at all. All kids think the tooth fairy looks like this:

NOT this: