Hollywood’s Most Politically Incorrect Casting Mistakes
There's a legendary Hollywood story that goes something like this. Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier are preparing for a scene in the 1976 spy thriller, Marathon Man. In the scene, Hoffman, playing an innocent man captured and tortured by Nazi spies, readies himself by sitting in a bathtub of ice water for five minutes. Sir Laurence, intrigued by the method, asked Hoffman to explain. He told the famed Englishman that he wants his bluish skin and shivering body to be authentic. "But my dear boy," Olivier supposedly said, "Why do you think we call it acting?"
That word - acting - has taken on many different meanings through the years. But today, every actor in every role must get the Hollywood political correct stamp of approval. For example, no longer could Englishman Olivier play a German. In fact, it might not be stretching the point to say that Hoffman shouldn't have gotten his role because he's wasn't really a distance runner.
So, whether you agree or disagree with this current cinematic zeitgeist, there was a time when Tinseltown did go to absurd, if not insulting, lengths in casting.
So, here they are - and heaven knows there are many, many more - Hollywood's Most Politically Incorrect Casting Mistakes.