In the stage production of the musical of
Lord of the Rings, Boromir was played by a black actor in both the Toronto and London productions. I am fairly certain that choice was made to make him stand out and be recognizable/identifiable in the large cast. Off the top of my head, I do not recall if either cast had other non-white actors. There are some cases where race does not need to make a statement and just 'is', but that is more common in theater than in film. And one could certainly ask of the musical - why Boromir? Why not another character? What does that casting choice say to the audience?
Race in fantasy film is something the audience is bound to take as symbolic of something, imbued with meaning. It doesn't need to be, but the audience is looking for that. And if the message is that 'other = weird/strange/evil', well...that's a choice. The island of cannibals in the second
Pirates of the Caribbean film are a light-hearted and comedic representation of a scary dark-skinned group of people. Is that...okay? The film isn't asking that question, but the audience is allowed to.
There are animes where the central plot revolves around racial conflict, with clear parallels to real world events, such as terrorism in the Middle East or the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. If someone wanted to translate the story into stage or film, they would likely cast all Japanese actors to fill the roles, including the roles of characters who are clearly meant to be 'foreigners.' That is simply who is available for a Japanese-language production, and I doubt anyone would be surprised by those choices.
What makes the Lord of the Rings production at Amazon different is that it is certainly a large budget project with the capability of filming internationally. So, access to a broad talent pool is understood, and thus choices made are seen as limiting opportunities for certain actors. That is a question the industry needs to address. Not every actor would be appropriate for every available role, but certainly overly conservative casting policies often fail to consider anything beyond 'default' casting for roles. No doubt that is very frustrating for actors trying to find projects to get involved in. And then when someone does cast Idris Elba as the Norse god Heimdall the White, it is deemed controversial and there is this whole flurry about it....which is...maybe why conservative casting practices are what they are. Giving people what they are used to is considered 'safe'.
The way to solve it simply though is with great writing. We just keep consistently (as is already being done) making sure that our characters are nuanced and believable. Bad guys only exist if they have a narrow focus. If you can believe in them then they become complex interesting characters, even if you don’t agree with all their actions.
Say you are Hispanic. And every single role you are ever offered is 'gang member/drug dealer'. That likely gets old after awhile. Nothing wrong with wanting more variety in your career opportunities. And you typically hear about this when the actor
does find a different type of role, and comments on how refreshing the opportunity was. I think that might be what has happened here - an actor commenting on having the chance to be part of
Mortal Kombat, but not the chance to be part of
Lord of the Rings. Simply commenting on reality.
But I agree that a villain role can be quite interesting. Consider the vampire Spike on
Buffy. He's introduced as a villain. He stays a villain for some time. *Eventually* they give him an arc where he's maybe more of a reluctant ally, and has a 'romance' storyline with Buffy. But he started as a simple, uncomplicated, straight up villain. And that role was interesting and memorable from the beginning. Obviously that actor accepted it and agreed to play the character before finding out what the future storylines would be - he accepted the role of 'punk vampire recurring villain'.
The issue on Silm Film is that we are very seldom showing the story from the Villains' perspective. Occasionally, yes. We do have a story arc for Morgoth and Sauron, of course. But...most of the other villains lack that nuance. Since this is television, we have the time and opportunity to give the show a good deal of nuance, understanding what is motivating even minor characters to act as they do. But...orcs
are simply bad guys. We don't plan to change that. Harad, on the other hand, we are seeking to portray in a sympathetic light in the Frame this season. The Haradrim aren't simply villains, and there are good historic reasons why they don't view the Numenoreans as heroes. We can tease out some of that history - Tolkien wrote it, he intended this as the backdrop. But, in the stories he wrote, he did not take the opportunity to go to Harad. We created that opportunity as an adaptation and interpretation of his work.
Since we are not a 'real' production, we cannot create opportunities for real life actors. It's all fantasy casting, and typically of actors who are famous enough not to need our help to further their careers
. So, the Silm Film considerations of race in casting have always skewed heavily to a discussion of storytelling, and of how the casting choices further our story. We have not given much thought to the industry side of things, since...we are not part of that. But naturally actors do care about choices made in their industry and how it impacts their career opportunities!