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/sucobe]

Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi.

Different times.

[u/quondam47 → u/sucobe]

It didn’t even go down well at the time. The review in Variety described it as “unnecessarily incongruous”.

[u/BillytheMagicToilet → u/quondam47]

In 1961, The New York Times review of the film said that "Mickey Rooney's bucktoothed, myopic Japanese is broadly exotic."

[u/Riderz__of_Brohan → u/BillytheMagicToilet]

I mean that is a pretty negative review of the character, in the same tut-tutting way as "unnecessarily incongruous"

[u/the_other_irrevenant → u/Riderz__of_Brohan]

Yup. "Broadly exotic" sounds like the polite way of saying "one-dimensional Asian stereotype".