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Actress Noma Dumezweni responds to reaction to her being cast as stage Hermione Granger

January 14th, 2016 by Marc Comments

theatre newshermione

It seems to be that recently there’s been a lot of fuss about roles that were for/interpreted as being for white people being played by black people.

The ones that come to mind were Johnny Storm being played by Micheal B Jordan in Fantastic Four and, more recently, the talk of Idris Elba being talked about for both James Bond and Roland Deschain in the Dark Tower movies.

Now the latest is actress Noma Dumezweni who will be playing Hermione Granger in the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; the issue of course is that Hermione has so far been portrayed as white on the book covers and when played in the movies by Emma Watson

However, with all the negative reposnse to her casting, the actress has responded in a very classy way:  “It stems from ignorance,” she says.

“They don’t want to be a part of the creative act. To say it’s not as it was intended is so unimaginative, I don’t think they understand how theatre works. We’re here to heal you, make you smile and whisk you away.

“The only question we should ask is ‘Are they good?’ I’ve met great actors black and white and I’ve met bad actors black and white.”

Her response is very measured and much more restrained than perhaps she was entitled to be.

We look forward to seeing her as Hermione (if we ever get tickets)… what about you guys?

Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, a story spread out over two separate plays, will arrive in London’s Palace Theatre in July, and will follow the adventures of of Harry and Ginny Weasley’s youngest son, Albus.

Source: Nerdb@#tards

 

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….