Peter Dinklage talks Hervé Villechaize movie, addresses casting controversy
Exclusive: Peter Dinklage talks Hervé Villechaize movie, addresses casting controversy https://t.co/CgcLq0XQRs
- Entertainment Weekly (@EW) August 29, 2018
In the early 1980s, Hervé Villechaize was a trailblazing star, an actor who overcame discrimination and incredible odds to land major film roles, and became a household name. He was the most famous actor with dwarfism in the country - and most people couldn’t name a second.
Peter Dinklage portrays Villechaize in an upcoming HBO movie, My Dinner with Hervé, who committed suicide in 1993 after a downward spiral of diminishing roles and chronic physical pain.
Dinklage tackles a “whitewashing” claim about the film :
"Hervé was judged by how he looked, and cast and perceived to be who he is accordingly. It says [Villechiaze was half-Filipino] on Wikipedia. Family members can’t change information on there. I don’t know who is able to put information up, but there are so many things on there that aren’t true. There’s this term 'whitewashing.' I completely understand that. But Hervé wasn’t Filipino. Dwarfism manifests physically in many different ways. I have a very different type of dwarfism than Hervé had. I’ve met his brother and other members of his family. He was French, and of German and English descent. So it’s strange these people are saying he’s Filipino. They kind of don’t have any information. I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes or sense of justice because I feel the exact same way when there’s some weird racial profile. But these people think they’re doing the right thing politically and morally and it’s actually getting flipped because what they’re doing is judging and assuming what he is ethnically based on his looks alone. He has a very unique face and people have to be very careful about this stuff. This [movie] isn’t Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Personally, I would never do that, and I haven’t done that, because he wasn’t. People are jumping to conclusions based on a man’s appearance alone and that saddens me."
source
Full interview @ the source