What Are Colorblind and Color-Conscious Casting?

“House of the Dragon” Courtesy Ollie Upton / HBO

This practice involves casting directors putting together ensembles without taking an actor’s race or ethnicity into account. Generally, this means that the movie, series, or production doesn’t address the impact of race and ethnicity within the story world in a complex manner. Here are a few notable examples:

• “House of the Dragon”: Although the character of Lord Corlys Velaryon is white in George R.R. Martin’s “Fire and Blood,” the show’s source text, Black actor Steve Toussaint portrays him on the series. In an interview with Men’s Health, he addressed the vocal minority of racist “Game of Thrones” fans who criticized his casting. “They are happy with a dragon flying. They’re happy with white hair and violet-colored eyes. But a rich Black guy? That’s beyond the pale,” he said.
• “Riverdale”: Most of the characters in the Archie Comics that Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s CW show is based on are white. But CDs Lyndsey Baldasare and David Rapaport cast multiple actors of color in key roles, including Brazilian American Camila Mendes (Veronica Lodge), Chinese Malaysian Ross Butler and Korean America Charles Melton (who both played Reggie Mantle), and Black performer Alvin Sanders (Pop Tate). 

But not all actors of color were receptive to the series’ casting choices: Though there’s no corresponding character to Peaches ‘N Cream in the comics, the Black actor who portrays her, Bernadette Beck, told Elle in 2020 that she believes her casting reeked of tokenism. “I feel like I was just there to fulfill a diversity quota,” she said. “It’s just to fulfill points.” 

• “The Witcher”: In Andrzej Sapkowski’s fantasy novels, the characters of Yennefer of Vengerberg and Fringilla Vigo are both white. But on the Netflix series adaptation, they’re played by Indian British actor Anya Chalotra and the Zimbabwean British actor Mimi Ndiweni, respectively. 

In a Reddit AMA, creator Lauren Schmidt Hissrich wrote, “We do colorblind casting, and we work hard to make sure that no one feels like they can’t put themselves up for a role just because they [don’t have] the ‘expected’ look of the character.” 

• “The Green Knight”: Indian British actor Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain in David Lowery’s indie film, who, like almost all figures of Arthurian legend, is white. Speaking to Shadow and Act, Patel said that his casting is “colorblind in the truest sense of just [wanting] to capture an essence of someone. And we’re actors playing these roles, and it’s really an exciting time.”
• “The Little Mermaid” (2023): In Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of its 1989 animated classic, Black actor Halle Bailey plays Ariel. She told The Face, ​​“I know people are like, ​‘It’s not about race.’ But now that I’m her… People don’t understand that when you’re Black, there’s this whole other community. It’s so important for us to see ourselves.”
  

“Hamilton” Courtesy Disney+

Color-conscious casting considers the complexities of race and ethnicity and acknowledges these topics in the film, series, or production. The practice involves creators and CDs meaningfully engaging with race and ethnicity, their roles within a given narrative, and how that relates to socio-historical hierarchies of oppression and power. 

According to Playbill editor-in-chief Diep Tran, color-conscious casting means that “we’re aware of the historic discrimination in the entertainment industry, and we’re also aware of what it means to put a body of color onstage.” 

Here are some examples of projects that have employed color-conscious casting:

• “Hamilton”: Diverse casting was baked into this Pulitzer- and Tony-winning rap musical from the beginning, which created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of Puerto Rican, African, and Mexican descent. Aside from Miranda, the leads in the original Broadway production included Black actors Leslie Odom Jr. (Aaron Burr), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Angelica Schuyler), and Daveed Diggs (the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson); Phillipa Soo (Eliza Hamilton), who is of Chinese descent; and Anthony Ramos (John Laurens and Philip Hamilton), who is Afro Latino and Puerto Rican American. In fact, every major role except for King George III (Jonathan Groff) was played by a person of color. 

Miranda told the New York Times that since he saw Alexander Hamilton’s life as a “hip-hop narrative,” he wanted to steep his show in Black and Latinx history; so it made sense that the ensemble would reflect that diversity. In the Guardian, director Thomas Kail said, “We never imagined casting the show in any other way—never for one second. We are very conscious of what we are doing here. This is not colorblind casting. It felt essential.”

• “Les Misérables”: In Andrew Davies’ 2018 miniseries, Black actor David Oyelowo portrays the story’s antagonist, Javert, who is a white man in Victor Hugo’s novel (and most of other adaptations). 

Oyelowo told Screen Daily, “It’s a win when it comes to this underlying thinking that to have someone like me play Javert is historically inaccurate and therefore not permissible. Because I’m so invested in the representation of people of color on TV and film, I’ve done the research, I’ve read the history books, [and] I know that to have someone like me playing Javert is not outside of the realms of historical plausibility. There were people of color who were operating not purely as subjugated, enslaved, or brow-beaten individuals at that time.” 

The actor emphasized that the series didn’t ignore race. In an interview with Radio Times, he said, “The fact that they put any ethnic minorities in that means that there should be space for bigger characters. Because you're not just saying, ‘OK, this is purely a white world, and here are very story-driven reasons why that’s the case. You are interspersing people of color into it, and so therefore, it’s a conscious decision to put them on the margins as opposed to [putting] them front and center.” 

• “Mary Queen of Scots”: In Josie Rourke and Beau Willimon’s 2018 film, Chinese British actor Gemma Chan portrayed the real-life white Englishwoman Bess of Hardwick. 

Chan told Allure that the movie represents compound identities in a nuanced way—and that she believes it’s important to show viewers that not everyone in British history was Caucasian. “If we portray a pure white past, people start to believe that’s how it was, and that’s not how it was,” she said.

“The Last of Us” Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO

Pros

• Representation: “Colorblind casting should be the standard because it allows various identities to be equally represented onscreen,” wrote Cara Chan and Arshia Sista. “Colorblind casting puts more emphasis on individual talent and perceives a human and their capabilities beyond the color of their skin.”
• A reminder of historical diversity: “Casting Black actors…is also a timely reminder that the past was not as ethnically homogenous as some might like to think,” said literature professor Stephanie Russo. 
• Casting opportunities for nonwhite actors: In an article for the Root, Cori Murray wrote about the ways in which the #OscarsSoWhite movement did (and didn’t) make things better for actors of color. “Swift changes were made throughout the industry—more Blacks and women were inducted into the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, and top talent were encouraged to add inclusion riders to their contracts—to course-correct decades of blatant racism, sexism and gender bias,” she wrote.

Cons

• The practice can erase the specifics of cultural identity: “The thing about colorblind casting is that it denies the person standing in front of you,” said Snehal Desai; she’s the producing artistic director of L.A.’s East West Players, one of the oldest Asian American theater companies in the country. “It ignores identity, and for people of color, that further alienates us.”
• It fails to address the need for institutional change: “Colorblind casting is an aberrant idea that has never had any validity other than as a tool of cultural imperialists who view American culture, rooted in the icons of European culture, as beyond reproach in its perfection,” Black playwright August Wilson said in an address at Princeton University. “To mount an all-Black production of a ‘Death of a Salesman’ or any other play conceived for white actors as an investigation of the human condition through the specifics of white culture is to deny us our own humanity, our own history, and the need to make our own investigation from the cultural ground on which we stand as Black Americans. It is an assault on our present, our difficult but honorable history in America; is an insult to our intelligence, our playwrights, and our many and varied contributions to society and the world at large,” he continued. “We do not need colorblind casting—we need some theaters to develop our playwrights.”
• The potential for erasure: “ ‘Colorblind casting’ is rooted in systemic racism,” wrote Black actor Omari Newton. “It is a form of erasure. It is the theatrical equivalent of ignorantly telling your Black friend, ‘I don’t see color’ when they try to engage you in a conversation about race. It is passively dehumanizing in the way that it dismisses the racism that is embedded in the very fabric of how colonized countries were founded.”

“Les Misérables” Courtesy BBC

Pros 

• Recognition of racial and ethnic themes: “Color-conscious casting is open to casting people in roles that they may not have traditionally been written for, but [it also understands and thinks] about the way that their race now affects this role and affects the story,” wrote Black actor Samantha Williams. “It asks creative teams to be willing to engage with the racial stereotypes and the deepness that comes with putting POC actors into these traditionally white spaces.”
• It adds nuance: “These debates are healthy,” said Obie-winning Chinese American playwright David Henry Hwang. “I think it represents a society that is attempting to come to grips and move forward into uncharted territory.” “There are gradations in what happens next,” Maurice Emmanuel Parent, a Black professor and theatermaker, noted. “It could just be a conversation within the production about the history that you’re bringing with that race into this role.”
• It invites audience interpretation: The director and producer of a given project “have to ask the questions of what the casting conveys,” Parent added. “If they don’t have all the answers, they should bring people to the table who will help them find the answers. Then they keep that information in mind as they are crafting this piece of art. If you include this awareness in the art-making process, the audience will get the message you want them to get.”

Cons

• It runs the risk of tokenism: “To create tokenism is to bring the illusion of diversity and inclusion; this can be achieved by bringing in a minority character or group to a production to prevent criticism from others,” arts journalist Christian Wills wrote. “In contrast, diversity within a production is added when the minority roles are used to add or build inclusion within a homogenized environment.”
• It can be reductive: Chicago-based director Lavina Jadhwani noted that color-conscious casting can merely be colorblind casting by another name when it doesn’t meaningfully deepen the conversation. To combat this, she came up with three questions that CDs should ask themselves to make sure that they’re approaching their work thoughtfully: “1) What story does this racially conscious casting tell? 2) Is the new story appropriately complex? 3) Do I have the right players to tell this story?”
• It can create barriers to representation: Greig Sergeant and Oyelowo discussed the practice in a piece for the Encyclopedia of Opinion. “Color-conscious casting has made strides onstage and onscreen for the BIPOC community,” they wrote. “But in the wrong hands, [it] places heavy responsibility on the shoulders of marginalized populations and can bar them from opportunities they deserve.”

“Bridgerton” Credit: Liam Daniel/Netflix

Colorblind casting asks viewers to engage in the willing suspension of disbelief and imagine a reality in which race doesn’t matter. Color-conscious casting, on the other hand, recognizes the impact race has on the world of a narrative and uses that knowledge to add texture.

Some productions straddle the line between colorblind and color-conscious casting. For example, the world of “Bridgerton” acknowledges race, but doesn’t meaningfully engage with its meanings and implications. Series creator Chris Van Dusen said of the casting, “We wanted our approach to race to go beyond mere representation. We wanted race and color to be a part of our text.”

However, student journalist Kulsum Gulamhusein wrote in the Georgetown Voice that the show “sits somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, not really committed to color-conscious casting but not colorblind either. The way that race fits into the storyline seems to have been an afterthought. 

“A truly color-conscious production would have woven the experience of being Black in a newly integrated society into the plot—or at least addressed it in more than one conversation,” she continued.

Both practices aim to create more diverse forms of representation onstage and onscreen. For example, director Michael Streeter wanted to cast a Black actor in the role of Nick in his 2017 production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Shoebox Theatre in Portland, Oregon. However, the estate of playwright Edward Albee (which is notorious for blocking any changes to his plays) withheld rights based on the argument that changing the character’s race would bring a new subtext to the play that Albee didn’t intend. 

In a statement, the Dramatists Guild of America wrote that casting choices that could impact the meaning of a play should remain with the playwright—but that it is “firm” in the “belief that our art form can’t achieve its full potential until it embraces our cultural and demographic diversity.”