Race-Lift: When Hollywood Changes A Character's Race (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

In order to accommodate the least-deserving movie star of all time, makers of the upcoming "R.I.P.D." have changed the name (and implied ethnicity) of Ryan Reynolds's character, from Nick Cruz -- as it is in the corresponding comic book and graphic novel -- to Nick Walker. The technical term for this little operation is "race-lifting," and it happens all the time. Sometimes it's repellent, like when "Spawn" director Todd McFarlane caved into studio concerns and turned a key black character white, and sometimes it's simply silly to hang on to a character's original ethnicity at the expense of an actor or actress who truly fits the part. At all times though, something is lost, the idea of a person who's enthralled us somehow.

In recognition of these lost souls -- the Nick Cruzes who will never be -- we've compiled some of the strangest race-lifts of the past few decades. Indian, Chinese, Nubian, Irish -- plenty of fictional identities have been lost at the altar of a movie's need to get made. Click on, won't you, and pay your respects.

Loading Slideshow

• "Twenty One"

  The 2008 sleeper hit recast the ethnicities of nearly all the Asian-American MIT students who inspired it, starring Jim Sturgess as a character based on Chinese-American pro gambler Jeff Ma. Ma hit back at claims that he was a "race traitor" for not strong-arming the studio, telling <em>USA Today</em>: "<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-03-25-jeff-ma-21_N.htm" target="_hplink">I would have been a lot more insulted if they had chosen someone who was Japanese or Korean, just to have an Asian playing me</a>."

• "2010"

  In Arthur C. Clarke's "Space Odyssey" series, the scientist who takes care of the Hal 9000 is an Indian man named Dr. Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai. In the eighties movie "2010," the character inexplicably retains a version of the Indian name (Dr. R. Chandra), and is played by Bob Balaban.

• "The Mummy"

  In "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns," Israeli actor Oded Fehr plays a member of the medjai, an ancient Egyptian term for the people of Northern Sudan, who were Nubian, and therefore black. In the "Mummy" movies however, they are vaguely Middle Eastern, and according to this video use the same line of ancient Egyptian over and over again no matter what they're trying to say.

• Morgan Freeman

  Morgan Freeman is one of the few black actors to have been cast in explicitly non-black roles. The characters he played in "The Shawshank Redemption," "Gone Baby Gone," and "Dreamcatcher" were all originally meant to be Irish.

• "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince"

  Up until the sixth Harry Potter movie, the character of Lavender Brown - whose ethnicity is unspecified in the books - was played by Jennifer Smith, an actress who happens to be black. The <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1574221/harry-potter-cast-finds-its-lavender-brown.jhtml" target="_hplink">part was recast with Jessie Cave for "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince,"</a> the first movie in the series where Lavender actually talks.

• "Pay It Forward"

  In Catherine Ryan Hyde's novel "Pay It Forward," Reuben St. Clair is a black teacher who bears scars of great metaphoric weight. When Denzel Washington turned the role down and Kevin Spacey took it instead, the character became Eugene Simonet, a white teacher who also bears scars of great metaphoric weight.

• "A Beautiful Mind"

  In reality, mathematician John Nash married Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Lardé, a physics student from El Salvador. In the movie based on his life, he married Alicia Larde, an all-American beauty played by Jennifer Connelly.

• "The Hunger Games"

  Katniss Everdeen, the main character in "The Hunger Games" YA series, is never identified by her ethnicity, though she's described as olive-skinned and dark-haired. The casting call for the part however (which eventually went to Jennifer Lawrence) <a href="http://http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703529004576160782323146532.html" target="_hplink">demanded the actress be Caucasian</a>.

• "The Last Airbender"

  Director M. Night Shyamalan took a lot of heat for casting white actors like Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone in "The Last Airbender," which is based on a popular Nickelodeon anime series featuring Asian and Inuit characters. In response, Shyamalan said: "<a href="http://io9.com/5504967/shyamalan-addresses-airbenders-race-controversy-and-answers-your-questions" target="_hplink"> The great thing about anime is that it's ambiguous. The features of the characters are an intentional mix of all features</a>."

Comments

[donbrown]

03:03 PM on 09/19/2011

Worst casting -- admitted by director Blake Edwards many years later:

Mickey Rooney as "Mr. Yunioshi" in Breakfast at Tiffiany's.

[SanityBuff]

12:34 AM on 09/12/2011

What about The Honeymooners? The movie was based on the old TV sitcom. In the sitcom all the characters are white and in the movie all the characters are black starring Cedric The Entertainer and Mike Epps among others.

[Fonsini]

04:27 PM on 09/01/2011

So what exactly is the complaint? Is it that this is somehow supposed to be racist, or is the author of this article questioning the business acumen of the studio in question?

The answer of course is that Hollywood actively promotes black roles in movies, try finding a movie without a token representative, so we are left with the shocking truth that dollars beat political correctness. Who could have thought such a thing possible?

[Zweiback]

02:58 PM on 09/01/2011

So Ryan Reynolds is "the least-deserving movie star of all time," according to well-known, highly accomplished Mallika Rao...

[mr e vader]

11:13 AM on 09/01/2011

I'd add Joel Grey as Chiun, the Korean trainer of Remo Williams, and George C Scott as American Indian John Rainbird in Firestarter. Great actors but WTF?

[sobachka]

06:25 PM on 08/31/2011

John Wayne as Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror" !
Worst. Casting. Ever.

[Baileygk]

03:47 PM on 08/31/2011

Jake Gyllenhall in Prince of Persia

[bbmomo194]

01:04 PM on 08/31/2011

I just think its hilarious that Egyptians are almost always played by white people in film. Did we forget that Egypt is in Africa? They have a little bit of colour.

[waasi]

10:16 AM on 08/31/2011

Who can forget Elizabeth in the Cleopatra role?!? Laughable at best but it pleases the obvious masses to have a white woman play an Egyptian ruler. And not only that, they plan on remaking it with Angelina Jolie?!? Even in this wack and fake smoke screen we call Politically Correct.

[mr e vader]

11:10 AM on 09/01/2011

Actually Cleopatra was Greek. She was the the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty that took over after the death of Alexander. Still a stretch, but not quite as bad as one would think.

[waasi]

12:33 PM on 09/01/2011

What comic book was that in?

[waasi]

10:18 AM on 09/02/2011

This is a load of European revisionist B.S.! I'm from North Africa, and people there are sick and tired of Europeans and Americans denying who Cleopatra truly was. The History that is cited as to her lineage was written 100 Years after her death! The Roman women said that when Cleopatra came to Rome she was "fat and Black" Why do you think her association with Caesar caused such an uproar in Rome? The last thing the people of Rome wanted was a half-African heir to the throne.They didn't go to war with Egpypt just for the fun of it! That's why Caesar was killed outside the Senate and why they pursued Cleopatra all the way to Egypt. The war was all about Race and maintaining the European purity of Caesar's lineage. Why do Europeans insist on revising history?

[XCitizenX]

04:06 PM on 08/30/2011

The protagonist in the movie "Philadelphia" that was played by Tom Hanks, in real life is a Black man. I was always wondering why they couldn't have found a Black actor to portray this role?

[fortheloveofmathematics]

05:51 PM on 08/30/2011

Because it would be a double whammy. gay.. and black.
I think it would be too scary (sarcasm)

[Madbunny]

02:05 PM on 08/30/2011

If you can get Morgan Freeman to play your part you recast that part. I swear that man would probably play an Amazon Pygmy and make it work.

[siciliabel]

11:49 AM on 08/30/2011

One of the best lines in "Shawshank Redemption" is when Andy Dufresne asks Red why he's called Red, and his response is that he doesn't know "Unless it's because I'm Irish". That line is lifted directly from Stephen King's novella, but it takes a new and humorous direction in the movie. In any case, as with so many Morgan Freeman roles, no one could have played the character better.

[Hickspy]

09:51 AM on 08/30/2011

Airbender did it the worst.

"Protagonist hero is Asian? No we better make him white. White villains? Nooooooo those we better make middle eastern."

[Abdul-Halim Vazquez]

03:22 AM on 08/30/2011

One of my favorite examples of "race-lifting" (in a much looser sense) is the Karate Kid (the original) and Crossroads (both with Ralph Macchio). Crossroads is the same as Karate Kid only instead of being a heart-warming story of a young Italian-American learning lessons of life and love from a wise old Japanese man it is the heart-warming story of a young Italian-American learning lessons of life and love from a crotchety old Black man. Replace karate with the blues guitar and there you go. There is even a duel at the end against the evil blues guitarist. Instead of the secret "crane technique" he whips out some classical guitar from Juliard.

[Abdul-Halim Vazquez]

02:56 AM on 08/30/2011

Smallville is another interesting example: Pete Ross goes from blonde to Black. And Lana Lang is played by an Amerasian actress. Although it was funny how they didn't actually comment on it from within the show. When they had that story line where they were looking for Lana's real father I kept thinking "Why don't they DNA test the principal? He's the only Asian man in town?"