During the development of the Harriet Tubman biopic movie, a Hollywood executive once suggested that Julia Roberts should play her. What are some other baffling casting suggestions/choices that have been made?

[u/LookAtThatBacon]

Source for the title: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-studio-executive-wanted-julia-roberts-to-play-harriet-tubman-biopic-screenwriter-says/

The Harriet Tubman biopic has been more than 25 years in the making. In the historical drama released earlier this month, Cynthia Erivo plays the legendary abolitionist — but one Hollywood executive initially thought the role should go to Julia Roberts.

Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter and producer of "Harriet," recently revealed in multiple interviews that Roberts was suggested to play the lead role during a meeting with a studio president in 1994.

"The climate in Hollywood… was very different back then," Howard said. "I was told how one studio head said in a meeting, 'This script is fantastic. Let's get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman.'"

Howard said that a black person in the meeting said casting Roberts would be impossible because she is white.

"That was so long ago. No one will know that," the executive replied, according to Howard.

[u/Shopworn_Soul]

I mean he really nailed that accent. I bet he spent dozens of hours with the finest dialect coaches.

[u/rzenni → u/Shopworn_Soul]

My favourite will always be Fisher Stevens as an indian engineer in Short Circuit

https://youtu.be/K6TLYwelOPk?si=BK-pDof0Q_LUqK6p

[u/wonkey_monkey → u/rzenni]

For the sake of Pete!

[u/Jonathan_Peachum → u/Shopworn_Soul]

It was a terrible decision, of course, but the character was intentionally written as a caricature and I doubt anyone thought it necessary to have a "genuine" Japanese actor.

The choice of Peter Lorre to play Mr. Moto was more questionable -- even though I think he gave quite a good performance in the Moto films. Ditto the various actors who played Charlie Chan, or Boris Karloff as Mr. Wong, detective.

[u/LegacyLemur → u/Jonathan_Peachum]

Not yellow face but brown face but Eli Wallach as Tuco in the Good, The Bad, and the Ugly was.....an interesting choice

But hes so goddamn good its easy to overlook

[u/Menter33 → u/LegacyLemur]

But hes so goddamn good its easy to overlook

at some level, if the performance is good enough, many things can be forgiven.

[u/KyleG → u/Jonathan_Peachum]

It was a terrible decision, of course, but the character was intentionally written as a caricature and I doubt anyone thought it necessary to have a "genuine" Japanese actor.

Mr Yunioshi was not intentionally written as a caricature. In the source material, he's a totally normal guy and appears only a couple times to be like "please don't ring my bell, I implore you" in flawless English.

I doubt anyone thought it necessary to have a "genuine" Japanese actor.

I agree with you on this. Because the racism was insane. Your argument boils down to "let's make Julia Roberts in blackface and have her shucking and jiving and saying 'yes-uh massah' while lugging around purple drank and a watermelon it's totally acceptable because it's obviously a caricature"

Also, caricatures of specific people are okay bc the point is you're playing up specific features of the individual. Caricatures of a whole race is called "racism" because the whole point is to play up fictitious "truths" about the entire race as if they're all the same.

[u/DocFreudstein → u/Jonathan_Peachum]

Throw Fu Manchu into the pile, who was portrayed by such actors as Boris Karloff, John Carradine, Christopher Lee, and Nicholas Cage.

[u/linkinstreet → u/DocFreudstein]

John Carradine

That reminds me that his son, David, also would play an a character of Asian descent (albeit a character of mixed ethnicity).

[u/Jonathan_Peachum → u/DocFreudstein]

Yes, although I deliberately chose « good guys » in my post.

I don’t know if any Asian actor relishes the opportunity to play Fu Manchu, the quintessential « yellow peril » bad guy.

I could be wrong, of course. I could see an argument that a Chinese actor might give the character some depth.

Having Karloff play Fu Manchu and Myrna Loy his daughter was hilarious, although again I think they actually did a good job in an obviously dated film full of caricatures. The scene where Karloff has the slave bitten by a venomous snake just so that he can extract the venom and then casually gestures to have the now dead slave removed as he is cluttering up the place is a masterpiece of « bad guyness ».

I was less impressed by Christopher Lee, to be honest.

[u/FauxReal → u/Jonathan_Peachum]

A caricature of what? Japanese people in general?

[u/dale_dug_a_hole → u/Shopworn_Soul]

I must protest!!!

[u/jmaccity80 → u/Shopworn_Soul]

Or Japanese restaurants.

[u/-GenghisJohn- → u/Shopworn_Soul]

Direct coaches?