Will Smith "not black enough for movie role"

I can see Will Smith being more Genie than Robin Williams was. And Robin Williams is Genie.

I would not say more, but I would say he is capable of being just as exciting and awesome. Their performance capabilities are on such a level that it is like comparing stars in the sky.

But . . . but . . . any actor can play any role!! And if you say anything otherwise . . .

Does being called on your racism bother you that much? Perhaps you should tone it down some more if that is the case.

No, it isn’t. Any actor can play any role.

I know you have an irrational anger about the fact that a character like Superman could be non-white at some point, but you should alert the authorities of the fire hazard you're building in straw man form.

You're not...

Actually, maybe you are this stupid.

I remember when Tom Cruise was cast to play Jack Reacher. The creator of the private detective series admitted that Cruise (who is rather short and small) was probably not anyone's idea of what Jack Reacher would look like given that Jack Reacher was supposed to be over six and a half feet tall and "massively built" but she pointed out that the choice was between "choosing someone who could act and finding someone in Hollywood who was six foot, eight inches who could act. Obviously it was much easier to do the former than the latter."

Note that as far as I know about the only actor who is 6'8'' is comedic actor (Everybody Loves Raymond) Brad Garrett.

Peter Mayhew was working as a hospital orderly and never really thought about acting until someone pointed out an ad seeking very tall actors. There are a number of actors in Hollywood (like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) who are well over 6 feet tall, even if they're not 6 foot 8, that they could have chosen. Some of them, like Vince Vaughn and Alexander Skarsgård, are even better actors than Cruise.

@Dayton3 ?

We haven't been paying attention for a while but Wil kind of needs a hit here soon. It's been a while for him since he was "hot." I'd say Mahershala, who has won Best Supporting Actor Oscars 2 years in a row is hotter at the moment. And True Detective Season 3 is arguably the series' best with him in the lead.

I still think S1 is the best season of True Detective, closely followed by S3. Ali's performance is what really elevated S3 to be as good as it was. Another actor in that role and the season isn't as good, IMHO.

BTW, the makeup team for that series definitely deserves an Emmy for their work. The way they aged Ali's character from young to old looked absolutely realistic and not the typical "here's a young guy that we tried to make look old".

No straw man at all. When Johnny Storm suddenly became a black guy in the last Fantastic Four movie, I was told any actor can play any role. When Edris Elba was cast to play Heimdal, the "whitest of the white" in the mythology Thor is based on, I was told any actor can play any role. I was accused of racism for thinking a character who had been portrayed the same way for fifty years should be portrayed consistently in other media. So I'm just holding y'all to that same standard. It's even more ludicrous to claim a black actor can't play a black character based on a real black person because the actor isn't "black enough."
So in other words, take that straw and stick it up your ass.

OMG!! Meharshala's old man make up made me miss my grandfather who died decades ago at the age of 84. He was a dead ringer for him.

Stephen Dorrf's aging makeup wasn't quite as convincing, but Ali totally looked like a 70-something year old version of himself. Very subtle, but completely effective.

Interesting, when I search for "Any actor can play any role" on Wordforge, half the results are you using that phrase, the others seem to be quoting you, and you were the first one to use it on WF.

Surely you can tell the difference between portraying a real person who is still alive, and a movie that turns Norse gods into wisecracking high-tech space aliens.

edit: You'd think my autocorrect would know "wordforge" by now.

Boy, I sure wish wypipo got this mad about actual racism instead of when they get called out on it.

That’s the narrative we’ve been hearing for the past few years now. Michael B. Jordan will be the next Superman.

Because of course this isn't racism. Because of course it isn't. Because it's not a "wypipo" (an idiom that is in no way racist, of course) saying it, it can't be racist.

Actors are never exact matches for the real-life character (unless they're playing themselves). Phillip Seymour Hoffman was tall, but played the short Truman Capote. Nicole Kidman donned a fake nose to play Virginia Woolfe. Robert DeNiro gained weight and shaved his head to play Al Capone. Should these roles have been reserved for actors who had more stronger physical resemblances to the basis for their characters?

Unless relative darkness of blacks is integral to the film's story, I see no reason it needs to be sacrosanct.

Remember folks using the term wypipo over and over makes you cool and edgy and not one bit a race baiter.

If you get your "news" from Yahoo! you get exactly what you deserve.

As others have suggested (rightly), it's not a matter of "black" as...whatever it is that white people define as blackness but, when portraying a RL (as opposed to comic book) character who, BTW, is still living, the goal is to cast an actor who actually bears some resemblance to the living man.

Smith did a wonderful job in Ali. One might argue he was too thin, despite bulking up for the role, and the makeup crew had to literally tape his ears down, but this is different.

As the Academy says in its promos, "for your consideration":

It's in the eye of the beholder, but to me Will Smith resembles Williams about as well as any actor usually matches their real-life subject. Certainly as well as they usually do without copious makeup.

And if Will Smith is a good fit for the role, why not?

It comes back to what I said earlier about assuming Dayton would be happy with Will Smith playing his dad in a movie of his life.

I don't have a stake in the question of if Will Smith is a good fit for this role, because I don't know enough about his background or the background of Richard Williams. I am extremely cautious however when it comes to anyone saying black is black, what's the difference.

Black isn't a racial descriptor, it's historically been used more of a "none of the above" when classifying someone as white, asian, hispanic, or other. Especially when it comes to those descended from transported slaves who had their family identities stripped off them.

Blackness wasn't defined by what the person was, but what they weren't. "Oh, you're only 66% European heritage? Well that isn't pure enough so you're black". See "one drop" laws.

If you compare Will Smith to Richard Williams, the difference is as big as the difference between Dayton (so presumably his father) and Will Smith. Yet no-one would suggest having Will Smith play the biological father of a white man. Why is that? Because in labeling a generic blackness we define people not by who they are, but by the fact they just aren't white.

This is historically and still to this day a massive problem. So while I don't know enough to know if Will Smith would be right in the role, I know enough to shut up and listen to the arguments about it presented by those who have had to deal with this all their lives.

Why? If you asked Will Smith and Richard Williams "are you black?" they would both (presumably) reply "yes."

Be that as it may, no one uses it that way today. Blacks refer to themselves as, well, black.

And again, that is not reflected in modern usage.

Williams is darker than Smith, but both have pretty common African features. Is the difference between these two really greater than between Dayton's presumable father and Will Smith? I doubt it.

There's no racist agenda to it. If you have actors of different racial types playing parent/sibling, it will undoubtedly invite questions and may confuse the audience (although it has been done; see Jurassic Park: The Lost World and the recent Fantastic Four). Just like you need a throwaway line sometimes to explain Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian accent, you might need a line to explain why (e.g., the kid's adopted, the kid more strongly resembles the other parent, etc.). But I certainly wouldn't say it can't be done or would be some kind of taboo to do so.

Your choice. But I'm a part of this society, and I don't feel obliged to forego having an opinion.

You sound like a race obsessed whiner. You also seem too emotionally invested in adaptations of cartoon drawings. It's depressing.

You've posted photos of yourself in the past, so I'm not revealing any RL information but, out of curiosity, who would play you in the movie version of your life, and who would be wrong for the role, IYO?

Louis C. K.?