Color-blind casting

Non-traditional casting, or integrated casting is the practice of casting a role without considering the actor's ethnicity. It derives its name from the medical condition of color blindness. A representative of Actors' Equity has disputed the use of the term "color blind", preferring the definition "non-traditional casting." Non-traditional casting "is defined as the casting of ethnic minority and female actors in roles where race, ethnicity, or sex is not germane."

The inverted situation, the replacement of non-white characters with white ones, or the use of white actors (sometimes in blackface or yellowface) to portray minority roles, is referred to as whitewashing.

Historical examples

Production	Year	Description
The Plot to Overthrow Christmas	1944	In a radio play, the Roman emperor Nero was voiced by Eric Burroughs.
Dr.Zhivago	1965	The eponymous Dr. Yuri Zhivago was played by Egyptian actor Omar Sharif.
Batman	1967	Eartha Kitt was cast as Catwoman on several episodes.
Jesus Christ Superstar	1973	African-American actor Carl Anderson was cast in the lead role of Judas Iscariot, successive to Ben Vereen playing the role in the original 1971 Broadway production.
I, Claudius	1976	Darien Angadi and Sam Dastor played key roles with Renu Setna and Roy Stewart in smaller speaking roles.
Never Say Never Again	1983	Actor Bernie Casey was cast in the role of Felix Leiter. Most other depictions of Leiter, a recurring character in the James Bond franchise, have been white, although Jeffrey Wright played the role in Casino Royale in 2006.
The Mahabharata	1989	Men from distinctly different ethnic groups were cast to play Indian brothers in the epic story of the nation's mythical founding.
Batman	1989	Billy Dee Williams was cast as Harvey Dent in the 1989 film. The character reverted to a white depiction in subsequent films by actors Tommy Lee Jones.
After the Fall	1990	Josette Simon played Maggie at the London National Theatre in 1990. The role is widely supposed to have been based on Arthur Miller's former wife Marilyn Monroe. Simon's performance gained the Evening Standard's Best Actress award.
The Shawshank Redemption	1994	An adaptation of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Red, who is Irish in the novella, is played by Morgan Freeman.
Cinderella	1997	A TV movie of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella contained a racially diverse cast, with Brandy Norwood as Cinderella, Bernadette Peters as her stepmother (with Veanne Cox and Natalie Desselle as Cinderella's stepsisters), Victor Garber as King Maximillian, Whoopi Goldberg as Queen Constantina, Whitney Houston as the fairy godmother, and Paolo Montalban as their son, Prince Christopher.
This England: The Histories	2000	David Oyelowo played of Henry VI of England. Oyelowo was the first black actor to play an English king in a major production of Shakespeare and his performance won the Ian Charleson Award.
Smallville	2001	The TV series cast African-American actor Sam Jones III as Clark Kent's childhood friend Pete Ross, who, in the comic books, was white; Kristin Kreuk, of Dutch and Chinese descent, cast for the originally red-headed character Lana Lang; and Allison Mack, whose character Chloe Sullivan was intended to have a non-white ethnic background.
Daredevil	2003	Black actor Michael Clarke Duncan played Wilson Fisk (aka Kingpin) who has always been portrayed in the Spider-Man comics as a Caucasian.
Catwoman	2004	Halle Berry portrayed the character in the 2004 film.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	2005	Mos Def was cast as Ford Prefect, a move that puzzled many readers of the original book. Although Ford's ethnicity was not explicitly stated in the books, he was described as having ginger hair and the majority of readers assumed for various reasons that he would probably be white.
Batman Begins	2005	Colin McFarlane was cast as Gillian B. Loeb in Batman Begins and its sequel, The Dark Knight.
Grey's Anatomy	2005	During the creation of the show, none of the characters was assigned a race and the best actors were chosen, leading to a racially diverse cast.
Casino Royale	2006	Jeffrey Wright was cast as Felix Leiter in Casino Royale and its 2008 sequel, Quantum of Solace.
Robin Hood	2006	Kwame Kwei-Armah was cast as De Fourtnoy (Master-at-Arms) in "Who Shot the Sheriff?", the third episode.
Merlin	2008	Several nonwhite actors play roles traditionally described in the Arthurian legends as white, most notably Guinevere and Elyan the White.
Max Payne	2008	Ludacris plays the role of Jim Bravura, who is portrayed as white in the video game.
King Lear	2010	Black British actor Pippa Bennett-Warner played Cordelia in the 2010 Donmar Warehouse production of King Lear starring Derek Jacobi in the title role. Her performance earned her an Ian Charleson Award nomination.
Thor	2011	The role of Heimdall, based on the Marvel Comics character commonly depicted as white, was played by Afro-Briton actor Idris Elba.
Skyfall	2012	The role of Miss Moneypenny, which had previously been cast as white, went to Naomie Harris, who reprised the role in the the next episode, Spectre.
Man of Steel	2013	The role of Perry White, always previously portrayed as white, is played by black actor Laurence Fishburne. Fishburne also co-starred in the 2013-2015 NBC series Hannibal as FBI agent Jack Crawford, who was previously portrayed by various white actors for his appearances in the films.
Fantastic 4	2015	Black Michael B. Jordan played The Human Torch despite being traditionally portrayed as white.

The Non-Traditional Casting Project

The Non-Traditional Casting Project was founded in 1986 to examine problems of racial discrimination in theatre, film and television. Actors Equity is a co-founder.

See also

• Whitewashing in film

Further reading

• "Berry is top candidate to play white Democrat", The Guardian, 10 October 2006.
• A. N. Wilson, "I'm ready for a black Miss Marple", The Telegraph, 21 April 2002.