Andy Serkis, the actor and director making the new ‘Lord of the Rings‘ movie, ‘The Hunt for Gollum‘, has spoken up about the lack of diversity in the casting. He says changes will only be made if they fit the story.
Serkis was recently asked about the mostly white cast for the new film. So far, it includes returning stars like Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, and Lee Pace, along with newcomers Anya Taylor-Joy, Kate Winslet, and Jamie Dornan. The director was quick to defend his choices by talking about where the story came from.
Andy Serkis Acknowledges Diversity Criticism But Rejects Forced Casting
In a chat with BBC News, Serkis said, “Tolkien himself was influenced a lot by Norse mythology, there’s a lot of that feeling.” He added, “The Shire feels very, very much like a very, a very white, you know…“, before trailing off. He stressed that the Hobbits are insular and “not very concerned about what goes on beyond the borders of The Shire, but they know they don’t want people coming in.”
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Serkis knows that the lack of diversity has been a complaint about the franchise for a long time. “Yes, there have been criticisms,” he said, talking about arguments that have been around since Peter Jackson’s original movies came out in the early 2000s.
But he made it clear that they would not force diversity just to look good. “This particular film is somewhat acknowledging that,” Serkis said. “But we don’t think we will be doing a politically correct just-casting-for-the-sake-of-casting-and-ticking-boxes version of the film. So, it’s only where relevant basically.”
Decades-Old Debate Over Race in Tolkien’s Middle-earth Continues
This comes as people still argue a lot about race in Tolkien’s work. Critics have pointed out that in Middle-earth, the good guys are mostly in the West and the bad guys in the East, and the darker-skinned enemies from the South, the Haradrim, are shown in a negative way. Back in 2002, academic Dr. Stephen Shapiro said in The Scotsman that “Tolkien’s good guys are white and the bad guys are black, slant-eyed, unattractive, inarticulate, and a psychologically undeveloped horde.”
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On the other side, supporters note that Tolkien strongly opposed Nazi racial ideas and wrote a letter to his publisher rejecting those beliefs. The Tolkien Society has always defended him, saying he “detested racism.” Academics like Dimitra Fimi have pointed out that Tolkien wrote at a time when “race was still a valid scientific term” and that judging him by today’s standards is “very problematic.”
Others say Middle-earth is actually a “polycultural and polylingual world” where heroes show kindness to enemies, like when Sam Gamgee feels pity for a dead soldier from Harad.
New Movie Takes a Different Path Than the Diverse ‘Rings of Power’ Series
The conversation gets even more complicated because Amazon’s show ‘The Rings of Power‘ has a more diverse group of actors. Actor Sir Lenny Henry defended that show by saying, “That’s to do with it being the 21st century; people want to see themselves.“
Serkis’s comments suggest ‘The Hunt for Gollum‘ will not go that route. The movie is set to come out on December 17, 2027. As they keep working on it, his words make sure that the old question of how to show Tolkien’s world in today’s time will stay in the spotlight.
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