2015-07-13

White washing. Racial casting. It’s a problem in Hollywood that continues to persist to this day.

Recently, the Cameron Crowe film, “Aloha” was released in theaters with Emma Stone playing a character who was half Scandinavian, one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Hawaiian. Now, some people may argue that her casting in this film is not as bad of an example of the white washing we have seen throughout the movie industry’s history—the most recent film “Exodus: Gods and Kings” come to mind as another more obvious example, seeing as Stone does indeed look Scandinavian—and because Crowe explained that her character was based on someone he knew. But nonetheless, it is truly astounding that diverse casting is still such an issue rather than just being second nature.

Because this ever existing, disappointing matter is not likely to be eradicated overnight, it is time to right some wrongs—at least online.

Even when diverse casting does occur in Hollywood, someone is always ready to get up in arms. Take, for example, the Deadline article about diversity casting being a “trend” or the backlash Michael B. Jordan received for being cast as Johnny Storm in the new “Fantastic Four” remake.

Getting more South Asians cast in important roles is going to be even more difficult than getting people to accept diverse casting in general. So to get things moving, here some Hollywood films that could have easily incorporated South Asian actors into the cast if mindsets were a little different when they were made. Not every actor in a film needs to be cast with a South Asian actor, and it’s easy to see that not every cast member from these films is named in the list below. But, this list is a guide to show that it really should not be that difficult to at least consider South Asian characters for iconic roles in our future classics. And as a bonus, no actor is listed in more than one project. That’s how many actors from North America and South Asia could make an impact in Hollywood films—it is time to take notice!

1. “JAMES BOND”



Hrithik Roshan as James Bond

Tabu as M

Dev Patel as Q

Janina Gavankar as Moneypenny

Naveen Andrews as Bond Villain

Priyanka Chopra as Bond Girl

For our interpretation, this Bond girl would have to be one that could also kick some butt and help Bond solve his case. No women sitting around waiting to be rescued and seduced here!

2. “THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA”



Sridevi as Miranda Priestly

Parineeti Chopra as Andrea Sachs

Alia Bhatt as Emily Charlton

Aasif Mandvi as Nigel

Arjun Gupta as Nate Cooper

Ranbir Kapoor as Christian Thompson

Chopra and Bhatt working in a movie together as competitors would be an incredible explosion of awesome!

3. “BATMAN BEGINS”



John Abraham as Batman

Naseeruddin Shah as Alfred

Poorna Jagannathan as Rachel Dawes

Aamir Khan as Henri Ducard/Ra’s al Ghul

Rajkumar Rao as Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow

Boman Irani as James Gordon

Sarita Choudhary as Lakshmi Fox

Why not a female version of Lucious Fox? “Homeland” actress Sarita Choudhary would be great in the role.

4. “CINDERELLA”

Freida Pinto as Cinderella

Sakina Jaffrey as The Fairy Godmother

Indira Varma as The Wicked Stepmother

Konkona Sen Sharma and Dilshad Vadsaria as The Two Evil Stepsisters

Shahid Kapoor as Prince Charming

5. “OCEAN’S ELEVEN”

Arjun Rampal as Danny Ocean

Fawad Khan as Rusty Ryan

Manish Dayal as Linus Caldwell

Vidya Balan as Tess Ocean

Irrfan Khan as Terry Benedict

Anupam Kher as Saul Bloom

Govinda as Reuben Tishkoff

Akshay Kumar as Basher Tarr

Ajay Naidu as Frank Catton

Kal Penn and Danny Pudi as The Malloy Brothers

Rizwan Manji as Livingston Dell

Raj Bhavsar as The Amazing Raj (Aka Yen)

Bhavsar is a gymnast on the U.S. Olympic team and could easily show off his acrobatic skills in this demanding role!

6. “BRIDESMAIDS”

Hannah Simone as Annie Walker

Mindy Kaling as Lillian Donovan

Deepika Padukone as Helen Harris III

Kajol as Megan Price

Archie Panjabi as Rita

Tiya Sircar as Becca

Aditya Roy Kapoor as Officer Nathan Rhodes

Sendhil Ramamurthy as Ted

Hannah Simone and Mindy Kaling as best friends? I’d give all of my money to see that film.

7. “INCEPTION”

Saif Ali Khan as Dom Cobb

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Mal Cobb

Shraddha Kapoor as Ariadne

Raza Jaffrey as Eames

Anil Kapoor as Mr. Singh (A.K.A Saito)

Dileep Rao as Yusuf (Because he already played the role!)

Riz Ahmed as Robert Michael Fischer

Kangana Ranaut as Aarti (A.K.A. Arthur)

Because she’s just as awesome as Joseph Gordon-Levitt and women deserve more kick-butt roles!

8. “THE GREAT GATSBY”

Farhan Akhtar as Jay Gatsby

Sushant Singh Rajput as Nick Carraway

Anushka Sharma as Daisy Buchanan

Abhishek Bachchan as Tom Buchanan

Kalki Koechlin as Jordan Baker

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as George Wilson

Sonakshi Sinha as Myrtle Wilson

Amitabh Bachchan as Meyer Wolfsheim

Bachchan has already played Wolfsheim, so this is a no-brainer.

CHARLIE’S ANGELS

Katrina Kaif, Lisa Haydon and Huma Qureshi as the 3 Angels

Aziz Ansari as Bosely

Ben Kinglsey as Charlie

Ansari may have been born to play Bosely. Truly.

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