Tom Hooper spoke with the Guardian prior to the premier of The Danish Girl at the Venice Film Festival.
Access for trans actors to both trans and cisgender roles is utterly key. In the industry at the moment there is a problem: there is a huge pool of talent of trans actors, and access to parts is limited. I would champion any shift where the industry embraces trans actors. and celebrates trans film-makers.
--Tom Hooper
Without explicitly acknowledging the controversy surrounding the casting of Eddie Redmayne, a non-trans actor, in the lead role of Einar Wegener – the real-life Danish painter who underwent a series of operations in the early 1930s to become Lili Elbe – Hooper said:
There’s something in Eddie that is drawn to the feminine; he’s played women before, most notably Viola in Twelfth Night. In our film, Lili is presented as a man for two-thirds of the movie, and her transition happens quite late on, so that played a part in coming to a decision.
--Hooper
Hooper also said that the production had reached out to the trans acting communities in the cities where they shot – London, Brussels and Copenhagen – and ended up casting “40 or 50 trans supporting artists”. He said: “I’m pleased we achieved what we did, but I’m sure there’s more to do.
Criticism of the choice of Redmayne has most notably come from
Jos Truitt at Feministing.
When actors like Mr. Redmayne and Jared Leto (who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Rayon in “Dallas Buyers Club”) play these roles, it perpetuates the stereotype that trans women are just men in drag.
--Truitt
It does that.
Nick Adams of GLAAD has a more nuanced position.
There is a consensus that trans actors bring a certain authenticity to a trans role and that trans actors should also have the opportunity to play non-trans characters.
--Adams
Beyond that, Mr. Adams said, there is little agreement among advocates, with some supporting Ms. Truitt’s hard-line position and others allowing that “in certain circumstances, a non-trans person can play a trans character if they do their homework and learn from trans people, as Jeffrey Tambor did.”
Like Hooper, the folks at Transparent have also employed numerous transpeople in supporting positions.
Brooks Barnes has an op-ed at the New York Times, Who Gets to Play the Transgender Part?, wherein he also mentions the criticism of Ridley Scott for not using Egyptian actors to play Egyptians in "Exodus," Cameron Crowe for casting Emma Stone as an Asian-American woman in "Aloha," and Warner Brothers for rewriting Tiger Lily into a white girl in "Pan." And of course we all remember Johnny Depp playing Tonto.
At this moment in time, especially, I think this industry has a responsibility to put trans actors in trans roles. To not do it seems very wrong in my eyes. There is plenty of trans talent out there.
--Sean Baker, director of Tangerine
Part of the frustration with Hollywood among transgender people involves the lack of transgender characters, even with heightened cultural attention. Of the 161 mainstream and art house films that GLAAD tracked in its last Studio Responsibility Index, released in April, none had a transgender character.
The list of mainstream films that have depicted transgender people as multifaceted or even recognizable human beings remains tragically short.
--GLAAD
Television has done better. Besides the reality show boom, we have
Transparent,
Orange is the New Black, and
Sense8. One should note that all of those come from streaming services. Then there is
The Fosters from ABC Family, featuring trans actor Tom Phelan.
That must eat Pat Robertson's shorts.
BBC Two has a new transgender-centric romantic sitcom which premiered on Friday. Boy Meets Girl, starring transgender actress Rebecca Root, Harry Hepple, and Denise Welch.
‘I was born with a penis.”
Judy was out on a first date with Leo, and decided to level with him – and by extension with the audience. Leo’s face was a picture. As was the waiter’s. And no doubt quite a lot of the viewers’ too. Before the Boy Meets Girl theme tune had even started, boy did you want to know what happened next.
--Jasper Rees, The Telegraph
“So you were born in the wrong body,” he said when he’d found his voice again. Boy Meets Girl felt a bit like that too. Though conceived with a remit to look for laughs in society’s changing attitudes to trans issues, this very modern broadcasting milestone came packaged in a demoralisingly traditional form of comedy.
When Judy elaborated that “it’s like being born in a prison, never having a release date”, it made you pine for a more intense drama about a boy meeting a girl who used to be a boy, where the age gap is not deployed as a smokescreen to deflect from the real issues facing transgender people trying to lead normal lives.
--Rees