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.