From The Guardian:
Maureen Lipman has criticised the casting of Helen Mirren as Golda Meir in a forthcoming film about the former Israeli prime minister, saying that the character’s ugliness is “integral”.
She added: “I’m sure [Mirren] will be marvellous, but it would be like Gal Gadot or Natalie Portman being cast as Angela Merkel. You just couldn’t even go there.”
Thursday, 6 January 2022
"Maureen Lipman attacks casting of Helen Mirren as former Israeli PM Golda Meir"
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11 comments:
And her opinion is worth the same as anyone else's-very little!
It's almost like casting an English actor to play Gandhi.
Isn't this 'beauty-ist'? Or maybe 'ugly-ist'. The remark is bound to offend someone and maybe not 'comply' with Equalities Act etc.
Sigh
DCB, correct.
B, to be fair, Ben K had an English mum and Indian Dad. Which is why he was allowed to play Gandhi. And Lenin.
L, yes, it is ugly-ist. I await my just punishment.
I'm glad I don't have a cat in that fight.
Mark, there was a boy at school with me who had an English mum and an Indian dad. He said it was hard to tell which pair of his grandparents were more horrified at the marriage.
B, that is one of the many upsides to mixed-race marriages. If we are still allowed to say mixed-race?
Mark, upside? They had to go and live in Africa.
B, now that is sad.
She claims that she was trying to make a funny comment:
The papers rather gleefully framed it along the lines of ‘Lipman objects to Dame Helen playing Golda!’. My comments — I am a publicist’s dream — were part of a hasty response to a telephoned questionnaire about ‘life-experience casting’. Should an actor be required to have scoliosis and a history of infanticide to play Richard III? — that sort of thing. I said that I thought actors should be free to play across the varied range of humanity but if the character’s sex, gender, race or creed drove the plot then, yes, I do believe minorities should be prioritised. I said that Helen is a marvellous actress and very sexy (which, surprisingly, Golda was), but I may have mused aloud whether Bette Midler, Tracey Ullman, Jennifer Connelly, etc, had ever been considered. My musings proved unamusing.
For what it's worth, I give her the benefit of the doubt.
JM, me too. Maureen L doesn't seem like a malicious person, and she does have a sense of humour.
I was just applying the same logic to good looking actresses playing ugly characters.
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