Free Republic

She has played the Queen and a gangster’s moll but her latest casting has sparked controversyNobody is quite what they seem. And actors? Well, for actors that’s the job. Dame Helen Mirren, as well as being herself for 76 years, has by now notably been Lady Macbeth, a London gangster’s moll, a thief’s wife, an alcoholic cop, an action hero, Prospero and also a British monarch at least four times. Now she takes on Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, in a new biopic, and the casting has caused controversy. The choice of a non-Jewish actor to star...

Sarah Silverman called out Hollywood’s tendency to cast non-Jewish actors to play Jewish characters, referring to the practice as “Jewface.” The comedian, 50, pointed to Kathryn Hahn as the most recent example after the Catholic-raised actress, 48, was tapped to portray the late Joan Rivers, who was Jewish, in an upcoming limited series. “There’s this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish but people whose Jewishness is their whole being,” Silverman said in Thursday’s episode of her eponymous podcast, adding, “One could argue, for instance, that a Gentile [a non-Jew] playing...